Virtua Racing Flat Out (Sega 3D AGES 2500 Vol 8) on the PS2 and Virtua Racing Sega AGES on the Nintendo Switch are arguably the best looking two ports of the Sega AM2 model 1 board classic arcade racer, so I thought it'd be interesting to compare them (despite not being graphically as nice as these two, there's a case to be made that the 32X could also be considered a truly great port - see it here! [ Ссылка ] ). I'm playing the Switch game using Yuzu emulator and the PS2 game using PCSX2 emulator. Both games run at 60fps (unlike the arcade original which was only 30fps). The Switch version is natively widescreen (the arcade could display in 16:9 or 4:3). The PS2 version is natively 4:3, I don't think there was any option to change it to 16:9 - I'm playing this on PCSX2 using a widescreen patch. The Switch game is running in HD (1080p on TV, 720p in handheld mode). No idea what the PS2 version natively ran at but PCSX2 can upscale the game into HD.

Both look great, but I think the Switch game is definitely the best looking version of Virtua Racing I've ever seen, it looks absolutely superb with it's 60fps and lovely upscaled and polished up graphics. I like the fact it looks a lot brighter than the PS2 game, but If you lower the gamma, you'll get more accurate arcade colours (thanks for that info @Larry ). Bit of a shame it didn't get any extras added though, like the extra courses and cars from the 32x and PS2 versions, that would've been awesome. As far as handling goes, it feels as close to me as you could get to the arcade original just using a joypad. in both gameplay videos I'm using the same viewpoint, the third one, which off the top of my head I thiiiink is called the float mode, so it's interesting that the PS2 version looks far more zoomed in. I'm not sure why the PS2 game looks zoomed in further. I don't know as well, why the PS2 game defaulted to 4 laps in the 'arcade mode' instead of the actual arcade's normal 5. I actually hadn't realised there was a difference until after I'd captured the video and started putting them side-by-side. No idea why there seems to be such a timer discrepancy between the two either, I wasn't aware of either emulator running either too fast or too slow 🤔

The Sega AGES collection on PS2 is notorious for generally how piss poor these (at the time) modern re-imaginings of classic Sega games were, but Virtua Racing is generally considered one of the few good ports out of the bunch. It does have some issues though...

As previously mentioned, on the whole it looks pretty nice, running at 60fps (and the graphics upscale very nicely into HD using PCSX2), with a great sense of speed. The simple polygons of the original game have been given a bit of extra polish here and retain a nice colourful chunky look. There are 3 extra courses compared to the original game and a small selection of unlockable bonus cars as well. It's got all the great VR music in (as you'd expect). You can also choose whether to race during the day or evening and whether you want cloudy or clear conditions and there's a GP mode.

On to the bad.The draw distance is pretty atrocious, scenery just pops into view constantly. The tire screeching sound as you turn corners will make you want to poke your eardrums out with a knitting needle after a while. It gets seriously annoying. The cars mainly handle well, but weirdly they seem to steer a bit like they're on a pivot in the middle of the car, unlike the Switch game that handles just like the arcade.

But for me, one of the biggest issues lies with the AI car collision detection. There is no graduation between a minor and major collision with a CPU car. If the driver of a CPU car drives into you and grazes your front tire by a nanometer, it will make your car spin out and come to a complete stop. And these c**ts WILL drive into you as you're attempting to go around a corner. They WILL drive right in the way of your racing line and generally be annoying dicks. If you're taking a corner slowly, because a CPU driver is taking up all the space on the road and you're trying not to go anywhere near it, one of his mates will often drive into your arse and make you spin out and come to a total stop. The other CPU cars will drive into you and hit your stationery car as you try to pull away. That is not good game design!

So yeah, good stuff and bad with the PS2 game. As I mentioned at the start, It's a real shame the Switch port didn't get any extra courses and cars, that really would've made it the ultimate port. Apparently, M2 did consider at one point adding the 2 extra stages from the 32X game in, but it was decided it would be too difficult...

The lack of extra content in modern arcade ports is a bit of a bugbear of mine, so much so I actually made a video about it awhile back. See it here:
[ Ссылка ]

#virtuaracing #nintendoswitch #segaages

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