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w hile Outrun 2 will always be my favourite Sega arcade racer, I’ve got a special soft spot for Daytona USA as well. Like Outrun 2 it sums up everything that’s great about Sega as an arcade manufacturer: clear blue skies, amazing music, astonishing graphics and solid game mechanics. It’s a fantastic racing game and there’s even a dinosaur-themed track. What’s not to love?

I would regularly play Daytona when it was in the arcade at Bournemouth pier and Poole arcade and it was one of the first games that I picked up for my Saturn. More recently I downloaded the PS3 version and while it’s close to arcade perfect, nothing matches sitting down in an original cab and powering round those corners as those fruit machine reels spin above you.

It’s tremendously exciting, then, to have four of the key members of the original Daytona USA team, including director, Toshihiro Nagoshi, who all give fantastic insights into how the racer was made.

And if for some reason you’re not a fan of Sega’s sublime racer, we’ve got plenty of more retro brilliance for you, including two articles on R-type II, The Making Of Quake and The Oregon Trail as well as an entertaining interview with Rampage creator, Brian Colin. There really is something for everyone.

Enjoy the magazine!