NULLED: SEGA AGES Virtua Racing (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

An absolutely stunning remaster of Sega’s classic 1992 arcade machine Virtua Racing. Though this game has come to consoles many times before (for more details see this excellent Digital Foundry video), it’s never looked or felt this amazing, thanks to the best-in-class porting done by M2.

Though this is an early polygonal video game with simple geometry and flat-shading, I think it looks absolutely stunning. Going on about Sega’s deep blue skies is cliche by now, but that combined with pop-art primary colours, the silky smooth locked 60FPS and the preternaturally bright and clear aesthetic makes for a sumptuous experience.

These graphics neatly dovetail with the game’s stripped down, focused sensibilities. You get just three tracks (Big Forest, Bay Bridge and Acropolis), one car, a 5 lap and 20 lap mode and that’s about it. The meat of the game is learning the tracks, figuring out the car’s handling and shaving tenths of seconds off your lap times.

With no obvious finish to the game, I set myself the challenge of placing 1st in all Arcade races. This quickly proved to be no mean feat. I nabbed first on Big Forest in a night, then spent two weeks practising Bay Bridge before finally figuring out how to tackle its tricky corners without taking my foot off the accelerator. Sadly Acropolis did me in, after another two weeks the best I could manage was third, having never figured out how to reliably tackle its vicious hairpin bend. There’s something enjoyably zen about focusing on one track over and over until its perfect.

Still, it’s an amazing (and cheap!) slice of gaming history. I am now craving more Model 1, 2 and 3 games. Come on M2, Virtua Fighter is like a no-brainer… and why not get Scud Racer or Daytona 2 a long belated home release (just edit them slightly to get rid of the licensed material..).