INTERESTING GAMES YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED

Sega’s mushroomshaped add-on for the Mega Drive gave it a performance boost in 1994, but it was caught between 16-and 32-bit console generations and flopped commercially. Its library is small, but well worth exploring

Words by Mike Diver

» [32X] Fancy a change of pace? Take the stock car for a ride around the game’s courses.

» [32X] There are numerous viewpoints, including the excellent cockpit view.

VIRTUA RACING DELUXE

■DEVELOPER: SEGA CS4 ■YEAR: 1994

■ Compared to the other two 32X launch titles,DoomandStar Wars Arcade,Virtua Racing Deluxedoesn’t feel like a downgrade from what came before it, even though it’s certainly not the same silkysmooth racer that launched Sega’s Model 1 arcade board.Perhaps that impression is born of the Mega Drive version having released a few months earlier, powered by the Sega Virtua Processor – because as fantastic as that 16-bit achievement was,Deluxeblows it away at the starting grid.

With three cars to select from, five circuits and a variety of gameplay modes including splitscreen two-player, Virtua Racing Deluxe was, at the time, the very best way to enjoy Sega’s racer at home. More cars and tracks would feature in the Saturn’s Time Warner-produced version of 1995, but it’s the 32X game that’s aged the most gracefully, having a clearer connection to the coinop original and playing with an instant-click purity that only the greatest arcade racers can deliver.

Of the three rides in Deluxe, the F1 model is inarguably the classic choice, but anyone feeling their way into the game should opt for the NASCARstyle stock car option, which handles the easiest around demanding bends. The prototype car, on the other hand, is all about speed, but you’ll need to be exceptionally familiar with the track layouts to get the best out of it. The arcade game’s Big Forest, Bay Bridge and Acropolis circuits are present and correct here, albeit with reduced collision detection in the environments to keep the framerate at a sensible 20fps. (Which is to say if you drive straight through a tree, that’s a feature, not a bug.) New to Virtua Racing are the Highland and Sand Park tracks – the former combining right-angled street racing with mountain roads and the latter a winding streak of tarmac cutting through a desert-like landscape.