boy what a lot of emotion' s come free after finaly getting my hands on this oh so desired demo. finaly i could feel how the game respond to the gamepad from the xbox. and all i can say is: thanx sumo digitall ! you did it. the counter steering works just the same as in the arcade version. noboddy will be surprised to hear that the graphics are indeed arcade perfect, but it' s still amazing to behold yourself.

for the orginal outrun (released at 1986 at the arcades) it took 10 !!! years to finaly get a arcade perfect version on the sega saturn. but now thanx to sega and sumo digitall we get a arcade perfect version within a year ! (i played outrun 2 at the arcades this summer !)

tomorrow after work and eating i will give the demo the " score" treatment. for now, lets rejoyce, and i will finaly get some sleep !

Waaa, where' d you get the demo? More importantly, where do you live? If you are in the US then there' s no point me trying to get it.

i live in the netherlands (europe/holland). the demo whas only released in the UK if i am not mistaken. the game i will buy orginal, but the demo (witch is not avaiable here) i downloaded. but rest assured, sega WILL get my money when this uber game gets the release treatment, its THAT good.

graphics: 10. dont ask me how, but sumo digital have created the arcade with ease. everything is here: all the reflections (in water, cars, and whatever shines), sand and fog blown up from the streets, and all this with the same framerate as the orginal game. so the lesser amount of memory in the xbox did not created problems for sumo digital.

sound: 8,0. on the demo, only the 3 old outrun tunes are avaiable, but sounded cool to hear once again. the sound effects are nice. but the car humming (exactly like its arcade parent) sounds like a exited musquito. if a ferarri would sound like this, i would take it to the garage.

playabillity: 10. the thing i feared most whas if sumo could transfer the exelent drifting feeling to the xbox gamepad. and after lots of playing around with the demo, i can safely say: they DID IT !!! that counterstearing to keep your slide in controll is done exelently ! this makes for one of the best arcade racers avaiable on console. you NEVER can blame mistakes on the controlls. fan' s of the arcade outrun are surely in for a treat !

lastabillity: -,-. how can i score a demo for lastabillity ? you get the first 3 stages (start stage, go left, go left.), and 2 car' s (the F50 and the 360 spider) to toy around with, and you get to choose from the 3 famous outrun tunes: splash wave, the magical sound shower, and the passing breeze. to add a little longlivity to the demo, you also get to change the difficulty settings from verry easy, easy, normal, hard, and verry hard. i could finish verry hard in one evening play, so exept for the cick on the speed, there is nothing new for me to see in the demo. but it still keeps getting me back to it becouse i want to break my record.

totall score (demo): 10. this demo can be played time after time. it will not crash like my burnout 3 demo did on my playstation 2. the content in the outrun 2 demo is really put together really good. you even get to see the demo witch you also see at the arcade' s if the game is left alone (a rare sight), and how the drifting is done. so all in all this is a way good demo to show the people how the full game will look and play. hats off to sega.

cooolllll

I wonder if this game will be as addicting as Crazy Taxi

The demo was released in the UK and I haven' t heard anything about it??? What’s going on? Am I becoming careless in my old age? Looks like tomorrow’s mission is to hunt this down!

---edit

Mwuhaha, my superior detective skills have uncovered the fact the demo is being sold in ' Game' . The demo of Burnout 3 was replaced with the Outrun 2 demo recently in store and I didn' t notice. That or they did it Friday and I was too excited about Burnout 3 then I didn' t see the Outrun 2 demo.

Looks like I’ll have to take a small detour to Leeds for a demo disk then. All of 15 minutes bus ride. Ohh, I' m all tingly and warm inside now.

Getting the demo was an awesome stroke of luck (or timing)...

I can not wait for the U.S. Release...I gotta get my fix from this awesome driving game!!!

Yep the demo is in many branches of GAME in the UK. However we' ve been a little reluctant to cover it since we' re still waiting to run our simply outstanding videos of the game - including the " secret" bonus tracks, Daytona 2 and Scud Race!

(The vids have been ready to go live for several weeks but stuck in a rather irksome approval process with SOJ). They will blow your mind when they eventually do go live, hopefully later this week.

Adam

Now that' s something worth waiting for (that, and Halo 2!!!)...those videos are gonna rock!!!

Thanks for the information!!!

Score, I’m looking forward to that Adam. Hope you get approval ASAP.

yeah, indeed. now lets hope we get to see those video' s asap [:P]

by the way, someone knows a solid release date for europe ? don' t get me wrong, i love the demo, but i' d rather race 15 stages in stead of 3 and i cant wait to start on those 101 missions, becouse i am beginning to think i can do this easilly (especially those events based on drifting).

to everyone who has played the demo: who finished the demo on verry hard ? i did !

I finally got the damn thing yesterday and I' m sorry to announce I suck at it! I' ve managed to get to the end of stage three after three attempts only to run out of time just before the finishing line. lol, after playing Burnout 3 Outrun 2' s 180 mph doesn' t feel anywhere near as fast.

I' m determined not to let the game beat me and music_maniac1965, I make it my goal to finish the game on ' very hard' !

Great coverage by the way and a glowing review I see. It gives me more motivation to really push the demo to its limits. The pictures are amazing and I' m downloading a video as we speak.

great to hear you enjoy the demo. indeed, the game is nowhere as fast as burnout, but thats becouse the surroundings in burnout are most of the time closer to your car. and, when you reach the fastest car' s in burnout, the game really blows by in a blurr. but to me, the slick controlls of outrun 2, and that happy feeling that this game gives me (like its way older brother used to do <outrun>) so i prefer outrun 2 to burnout 3. but verry close indeed, becouse both games are great fun to play.

with the full version of outrun 2 creaping closer now, i can' t wait to blow my ferrari over all the tracks avaiable. those secret tracks are way cool (i gues that' s the video youre downloading).

so i guess that if you are a long time gamer (like me) who loved outrun, then i can safely say you would be over the moon with this one, it' s that good of a sequel. but if you are from a newer gaming generation, you probably don' t understand why i am so down with this rather simplistic game. (exept for the mission mode, witch let you perform more strange things with your car. like blowing trough a everlasting convoy of trucks and busses, mowing down blue cone' s, or drive on the properly colloured lane. also a dropout race (last place gets the boot !) and just races with 1 to 1 or more racers. and those are harder than the normal game. its comparable to the heart mode in the arcade mode. (i presume you have been playing the arcade version).

i end typing now, couse i am eager to have another go at the demo :)