A funny little game, is dear Virtua Racing. You're not likely to find anyone proclaiming it as the best of Sega's 90s racers - it doesn't have the style and attitude of a Daytona USA or Scud Race, nor the poise or finesse of a Sega Rally or F355 Challenge - though maybe its greatest claim to fame is being the most important. Virtua Racing was a significant strike in the arms race between Sega and Namco that defined arcade racing in the 90s, and the start of a run of iconic games that stand as a golden era for the genre. It's where AM2's 3D style was forged, in the blue skies and green hills of Virtua Racing's three tracks, or in the stabs of tight funk from composers Koichi Namiki and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.
And it's where you can first mark out the unmistakable rhythms of Toshihiro Nagoshi, working here as chief designer under Yu Suzuki. There's a music to Nagoshi's racing designs, from the sinewy guitar solos of F-Zero GX through to the out and out rawk of Daytona USA, and there's a nice languid tune to be found in Virtua Racing, its tracks unfurling to a distinctive beat of their own. I'll admit to never having had much time for this particular game, but what a delight it's been to get reacquainted with M2's brilliant Switch port, where that rhythm has a new fidelity; it's at its best, I think, in Bay Bridge, where a rolling uphill switchback that's resolved with a quick chicane marked out by a concrete wall. Get it timed perfectly and your rear left kicks up a plume of polygonal grass. It feels fantastic.
More fantastic than I ever remember it feeling, really - maybe it's down to a few nips and tucks to the handling model (which is here available in 'normal' mode as well as 'arcade' mode, where it all begins to feel a bit more slippery), but this version of Virtua Racing has had me reassess its position in Sega's racing heritage. There's something to be said of the handling, as inconsistent as it is across the game's four views, which translates something of the grip of a winged open-wheeled racer, that downforce being brilliantly illustrated in the aggressively overstated lean of a cornering car as it pushes outwards on its suspension. It's about picking braking points and engaging in a little split-second trigonometry as you seek the perfect line. It's all quite satisfying.
from Eurogamer.net http://bit.ly/2GSwsBg
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