CRAFTING THE ULTIMATE RIDE

OUT RUN’S YU SUZUKI LOOKS BACK AT HIS EXCEPTIONAL ARCADE RACER

How did you collect data for Out Run? “Because of the ‘transcontinental’ concept, I felt that I should first actually follow such a course myself, collecting information with a video camera, a still camera and other equipment. I started out from Frankfurt, where I hired a renta-car, and I installed a video camera on the car. I drove around Monaco and Monte Carlo, along the mountain roads of Switzerland, stopping in hotels in Milan, Venice and Rome, collecting data for a fortnight. I have many happy memories of that trip.” Why choose a Ferrari Testarossa as Out-run’s main vehicle? “Naturally I was yearning for Ferraris. Above all, the most talked-about car of the time was the 12-cylinder Ferrari Testarossa. The first time I saw the car was in Monaco, and I was really moved by its beauty – I thought, ‘There is no choice: this is the only one’. There are many other charming Ferraris, but memory problems made it impossible to include them in the game… So we decided that the player’s car should be the 12-cylinder Testarossa.” Was it easy collecting data for the car? “Only a tiny number of Testarossas had been brought into Japan, so we had some trouble finding an owner to help us with collecting car data. Eventually, five of us squeezed into a small car and drove for three hours to see a [privately owned] Testarossa. We took photos of it from every side, at five-degree intervals, and we also recorded the sound of the engine.” How did Out Run’s iconic music come about? “I remember selecting a number of tunes to be used as points of reference. In those days we couldn’t use samplers or PCM sound sources, so the timbre of the tunes was a synthesiser creation, which led to us having some difficulty when attempting to trim data quantities for playback of the tunes. I remember wanting some guitars and voices in the soundtrack, but it was impossible to achieve with the technology of the time, so I ultimately had to give up.” Was anything left out of the game? “I was only able to put around half of the things I wanted to do into Out Run. Because of budget and development time limitations, some of the content I’d planned had to be squeezed or cut. I’d made preparations for eight individual characters and I wanted to include various events at each checkpoint, which would have made the player experience a story; something like The Cannonball Run film. I also wanted to give players a choice of supercars to drive, so that they could enjoy differences in car performance.” Why does Out Run have such memorable scenery? “I wanted to make a game where you could enjoy magnificent changing scenery and landscapes while driving, and really get a nice sensation from playing it – not a stoic racing style of play.” Out Run evokes a feeling of summer whenever we play it. Was that intentional? “Yes, that’s correct. I wanted to make stages where you could smell the fresh fragrance of new leaves and flowers, like in the green meadows of Switzerland, so I’m happy that you were able to sense that.”