Review Polymega Collection Vol. 4 - Drift Out Review (Polymega)

When you combine the words "rally" and "arcade", chances are you'll find that Sega Rally Championship enters your mind pretty swiftly. The 1995 coin-op smash hit delivered drift-based off-road thrills to millions of players, but it was far from the first game of its type in arcades.

Visco's Drift Out franchise kicked things off a few years earlier, but with a notable difference – it used 2D technology for its racing action, rather than 3D. The series often gets overlooked for this reason, which is a shame; it's still an awful lot of fun and, realism aside, does a pretty decent job of replicating the sport of rallycross.

The fourth Polymega Collection focuses on Visco's series, starting with 1991's Drift Out, which launched in arcades and was powered by an enhanced version of Taito's F1 system board. Adopting a top-down perspective, the game rotates the background as you speed around each circuit, using a technique similar to the SNES Mode 7 graphical effect.

It looks fantastic, but the 'TATE' screen makes it hard to see what's coming, and pulling off successful drifts is frustratingly difficult due to the claustrophically narrow tracks. Also, rival cars simply drive around the circuits without drifting, making it all feel a bit unfair. It's a nice enough racing game, but the series would evolve quite a bit from this point.

Drift Out '94: The Hard Order arrived in 1994 and was clearly influenced by Jaleco's World Rally, which adopted an isometric viewpoint. The rotating backgrounds of Drift Out are removed, and slick-looking CGI cars are introduced. For all of the advancements, though, Drift Out '94 still has one too many issues; the cars are difficult to control when cornering as they don't snap back when you exit a turn – you need to manually direct the car to ensure it moves in a straight line and doesn't simply bash into a trackside hazard.

It's also worth noting that, while the original Drift Out featured fictional car names and manufacturers, Drift Out '94 was able to secure the real deal – at least in its arcade form, anyway. The ROM used in this collection reverts to fake names, so instead of 'Toyota', you have 'Yotota', and 'Mitsubishi' is 'Bitsumishi'. This is understandable, given that Visco license holder Pixelheart isn't going to have the funds required to renew licenses with these firms.

In 1995, Visco produced the only Drift Out entry to be released exclusively on home consoles: Super Drift Out on the Super Famicom / SNES. Returning to the rotating track of the original 1991 arcade game thanks to the console's Mode 7 capabilities, Super Drift Out ends up being a lot more fun and even has its own track creator. It still has its issues – it's far too easy to hit trackside objects, ruining your lap – but it's fun in short bursts. Again, like Drift Out '94, all of the real-world cars have been renamed for this release.

The series really reached its peak with 1996's Neo Drift Out: New Technology. Running on SNK's Neo Geo hardware, it represents the moment when all of Visco's practice paid off. The Neo Geo MVS and Neo Geo CD versions are included here.

The cars now snap back after corners, the perspective scales in and out to give a good view of the action, and the whole venture feels just right. It's as close as you can get to capturing the thrill of rallysport without using a 3D view, with a convincing sense of speed. The biggest issue is brevity; it doesn't take long to see everything this game has to offer, and there are fewer tracks and cars to use than in previous entries.

Perhaps sensing that a bunch of rally games might not be a big enough draw to convince people to pick up this pack, Playmaji has included three additional bonus titles: Goal! Goal! Goal! (a Neo Geo soccer game), Boogie Woogie Bowling (the original Japanese version of the Genesis / Mega Drive outing Championship Bowling) and Great Boxing - Rush Up (a NES boxing game also known as World Champ).

None of these are 'best in class' in their respective genres, but they're worth a look nonetheless, and they are neat little bonuses if nothing else. Great Boxing, for example, allows you to 'train' your fighter as you progress through the ranks, and Goal! Goal! Goal! is a simplistic but enjoyable soccer sim, especially with a second player involved.