Sega have been doing a lot to keep fans happy lately, especially on the downloadble games front. As of late they have brought us the Saturn classic Guardian Heroes, two more Dreamcast games including the mega-rare Space Channel 5 Part 2, and later this year we will be getting Sonic CD. Best of all, they have actually been putting quite a lot of care and love into these ports unlike those sloppy Mega Drive re-releases from a while back. This trend of goodness is continuing with Daytona USA, announced just yesterday and due for release very soon to XBLA and PSN.
After they released Sega Racing Classic in arcades a couple years ago, a HD re-release of Daytona USA with the licensed name and some of the music removed, it looked as though if we were ever to get a proper port of this game on consoles, it would be without that iconic cheesy music. However they have managed to acquire the license for this download edition and it looks to be an arcade perfect port, which has been around 17 years in waiting!
Daytona USA was and in many ways still is the ultimate arcade game. While most arcades replace old games with those with newer graphics or simply anything with a dance mat on it, Daytona can still be found in many arcades everywhere as people still love to play it. Even people that are not fans of racing games or casual gamers can easily jump into the seat of the cabinet and have fun playing it, it's a timeless classic.
Console wise we got a Sega Saturn port that visually was sloppy to say the least, but still played as close as you could get to the arcade game at the time. They tried to 'fix' this by releasing Daytona USA C.C.E a year later, and although it looked better most of the music was replaced and it didn't feel the same for some reason. Many years later we got Daytona USA 2001 on the Dreamcast that included online play (except here in Europe) and while it looked even better than the arcade game in many respects, the controls of that version were almost completely different. It was still fun, but nothing like the arcade one.
So now in 2011 Sega are giving us the port we always wanted. It looks identical to the model 2 arcade game and they appear to have removed any pop u that that version had. It will have online for up to 8 players, very much like how many of the arcade machines were linked up for 8 player. The achievement list includes many of the easter eggs that were in the arcade including making the Jeffry statue animate by hitting the special button, and there is even a karaoke mode!
What else can we expect from Sega in the future with developments like this? A real dream would be to get some of the arcade-only follows up on consoles, such as Daytona USA 2 and Scud Race, but who knows if that's possible at this point. As a Sega fan prove to them this is a good idea and
buy this release. We've waited long enough for a port this good, show them they are doing the right thing and maybe they'll keep this ball rolling!
There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of love for the old SegaWorld Indoor Park that used to be in London (now just one floor of arcade games called 'FunLand'), but at least there is Arcade Heroes, who back in October got their hands on some juicy SegaWorld videos! The first video they managed to lay their hands on was is a promotional video showing off all the 3D concept planning of the place, and a bunch of footage of the rides that were there which bring back vague but fond memories. It also shows brief clips of what appears to be a Pirate Sega commercial for Virtua Racing on the Mega Drive!
More after the jump.
This is the photo you could pay to have done as you walked in from the two flights of escalators. We had two done on this first visit, and I've scanned the one with the least people, as it's the Sonic statue your all interested in. Seesh, I'm even doing a Sonic-ish pose, judging by the hands and feet. I'm surprised I wasn't wearing one of my jackets smothered in Sonic patches, actually.
