The news that Virtua Racing is coming to Switch – and that it promises to be the most complete version yet seen – has caused a wee bit o' celebration amongst Sega fans.
Yu Suzuki's seminal 3D racing classic effectively laid the foundation for the likes of Daytona USA and Sega Rally, and arguably inspired rivals such as Ridge Racer. While it wasn't alone in pioneering the use of 3D visuals in an arcade environment, its finely-tuned gameplay – not to mention its massive sit-down deluxe cabinet – ensured that it made quite an impact.
While we wait for the Switch version to arrive as part of Sega's AGES line, it's sobering to think that we could have been playing a scaled-down version of this classic on a past Nintendo handheld, had things gone a little differently (thanks, Larry Bundy Jr).
During the Game Boy Advance era, a pair of programmers at Dream On Studio – Luis Pons and Laurent Samani – took it upon themselves to create an unofficial prototype of Virtua Racing which they hoped would convince Sega to commission them to make a full-scale release.
The above video – uploaded onto YouTube some time ago by the game's project manager, Ben Yoris – is very impressive stuff when you consider the humble nature of the host hardware. It's better looking than both the Mega Drive and 32X versions, and gives the Sega Saturn port a run for its money.
Sadly, the pitch came at the wrong time; Nintendo was just about to release the Nintendo DS, and Sega passed on the chance to commission the port – presumably because it was about to focus its energies on DS software.
Still, it's interesting to think that we could have been racing around polygon tracks in an oddly-angular F1 car – in handheld form – all those years ago.
[source youtube.com, via twitter.com]
Comments 15
I love all this stuff about Virtua Racing lately. Impressive work indeed.
Now bring us more arcade stuff Sega:)
The original Sega rally would be nice on switch make it happen Sega oh and power drift
considering its running on a GBA this is really impressive stuff
Shows that they could easily have put Stunt Race FX on it. And Vortex. I want those games again, and a souped-up Axelay on Switch.
I still have Sega Rally on the GBA. It was ok, but played nothing like the original (obviously)
Once again, stuff like this never fails to amaze me. I'm also being reminded of an old Hot Wheels GBA game I picked up years ago, it had flat-shaded polygons. At the time it made me wonder if Virtua Racing could work on a GBA, right now the answer is right in front of me.
Darn, that would have been sitting next to my GBA proudly if it ever came to fruition. I love it when you see dev's pushing GBA like this
This potential GBA version looks quite good.
Not sure Switch will be the most complete (or expanded), I mean the 32X and Saturn added some extra tracks and cars if I recall (think I still have the Saturn port somewhere). I think the PS2 also got a version.
Depends if this will be based just on the arcade.
Am sure it will run the best though.
OutRun2006 is my favorite SEGA racer of all time, where a re-release is almost completely unlikely due to licencing.
I'm just glad the original Xbox version runs on the 360 through BC.
Though I wouldn't buy it, a full port of Virtua Racing for GBA would had been awesome considering we already got After Burner, Super Hang-On, Space Harrier, and Outrun on GBA.
I would have loved a game like this back then and there was a hot wheels game that looked like this it has many modes and had some shading on the polygons it was also a f zero clone too.Also it would been between 32x and Saturn version.It just shows what if Nintendo made a star Fox for the GBA
I swear some music sounds like its been ripped out of golden sun.
That looks so cool it's a shame it never happened
Well that's just impressive--and the frame-rate even looks solid too.
It's cool that they were able to get something that looks a lot like Virtua Racing to run on the GBA, but it's not even close to the 32X version. Compare the draw distance and frame rate, and that's just a start.
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