Brad: Back when I was in 9th grade, we watched a movie about the dangers of underage drinking. Whenever they came on the subject of drunk driving, they used footage of the game Out Run to illustrate the point, and ended by showing one of the game’s infamously spectacular crashes, in which car veers off the road and flips over, ejecting the passengers. But that’s totally the wrong message. Out Run has nothing at all to do with drunk driving – there’s no mention of booze in the game anywhere, and if anything, the cars are actually TOO responsive, which is the opposite effect of what drinking is supposed to do to your driving ability. No, the real lesson that Out Run teaches us is the awesomeness of speeding while not wearing seat belts.
Remember kids, you ARE invincible.
Stryker: The one thing that’s always really bothered me about Out Run is that it forces you to shift between a “high” and “low” gear as you drive. What’s the point? You could argue that since real Ferrari’s don’t have automatic transmissions, neither should the ones in Out Run. But I refuse to believe that a game with cars that can turn on a dime at 150 mph, and can flip through the air and land upside without being destroyed decided that adding a 2-speed transmission was the key to ultimate realism. And if that’s not the reason, then we have to conclude that the designers genuinely thought shifting made the game more fun. With such a skewed idea of what “fun” is, I’m amazed the rest of the game ended up being as halfway decent as it is.
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