MrThunderwing | What if Megadrive Outrunners was 60fp and single screen...? (West Route) @MrThunderwing | Uploaded January 2024 | Updated October 2024, 49 minutes ago.
A hypothetical 'What If...?' question, using a bit of modern technology to try and answer it.
Perhaps the biggest criticism that gets levelled at the Megadrive/Genesis port of Outrunners port was the decision to only allow the game to be played in split-screen. Whilst there was a big emphasis on multi-player in the arcade, not including a full-screen one player mode for a home version just seems daft (especially when you consider that the Megadrive version of Virtua Racing managed it, although it did have some extra SVP chip power up it's sleeve...).
So, hypothetically speaking, what if the game had actually been single screen and, just for the hell of of it, we could bump the frame rate up to 60fps? There's no rom hacking going on here, I've simply edited a pre-existing Outrunners video of mine in video rendering, enlarging and cropping the player 1 screen to look like it's in 16:9 widescreen (If I'd kept it 4:3 the car would literally be taking up the entire screen), whilst re-positioning the HUD elements to keep them in proportion. After this, I've then run the video through a program called FrameGUI to increase the video frame rate to 60fps using frame interpolation technology.
It's a shame MD Outrunners gets a bad rap, as it actually plays pretty well and moves at a reasonable pace, something a lot of the game's detractors never seem to mention, and, let's be honest here, there wasn't a hope in hell of Sega's aging 16 bit wonder console replicating the comparitiveSystem 32 board arcade original. The Japanese version of the game even got a hidden bonus in the form of the car from Virtua Racing as an unlockable vehicle, complete with some bonus bits of VR music to go with it - which is what I'm playing the game with here. This was weirdly removed from the US version, and I cannot fathom why. But hey, at least they got a version of the game at all, not like us poor saps in the UK/Europe, where it was never released at all... Interestingly, despite MD Outrunners poor reception on it's initial release, the Japanese version of it goes for absolute megabucks on eBay these days.
If you like the special Virtua Racing car guest apperance in this, then check these videos out. The bike from Super Hang-On appearing in Super Monaco GP 2 on the Megadrive:
youtu.be/0VC9QKmbumE
youtu.be/VEcMlmiRhFg
#Outrunners #sega #Megadrive
A hypothetical 'What If...?' question, using a bit of modern technology to try and answer it.
Perhaps the biggest criticism that gets levelled at the Megadrive/Genesis port of Outrunners port was the decision to only allow the game to be played in split-screen. Whilst there was a big emphasis on multi-player in the arcade, not including a full-screen one player mode for a home version just seems daft (especially when you consider that the Megadrive version of Virtua Racing managed it, although it did have some extra SVP chip power up it's sleeve...).
So, hypothetically speaking, what if the game had actually been single screen and, just for the hell of of it, we could bump the frame rate up to 60fps? There's no rom hacking going on here, I've simply edited a pre-existing Outrunners video of mine in video rendering, enlarging and cropping the player 1 screen to look like it's in 16:9 widescreen (If I'd kept it 4:3 the car would literally be taking up the entire screen), whilst re-positioning the HUD elements to keep them in proportion. After this, I've then run the video through a program called FrameGUI to increase the video frame rate to 60fps using frame interpolation technology.
It's a shame MD Outrunners gets a bad rap, as it actually plays pretty well and moves at a reasonable pace, something a lot of the game's detractors never seem to mention, and, let's be honest here, there wasn't a hope in hell of Sega's aging 16 bit wonder console replicating the comparitiveSystem 32 board arcade original. The Japanese version of the game even got a hidden bonus in the form of the car from Virtua Racing as an unlockable vehicle, complete with some bonus bits of VR music to go with it - which is what I'm playing the game with here. This was weirdly removed from the US version, and I cannot fathom why. But hey, at least they got a version of the game at all, not like us poor saps in the UK/Europe, where it was never released at all... Interestingly, despite MD Outrunners poor reception on it's initial release, the Japanese version of it goes for absolute megabucks on eBay these days.
If you like the special Virtua Racing car guest apperance in this, then check these videos out. The bike from Super Hang-On appearing in Super Monaco GP 2 on the Megadrive:
youtu.be/0VC9QKmbumE
youtu.be/VEcMlmiRhFg
#Outrunners #sega #Megadrive
