OutRun is Sega's genre-defining arcade racer, originally designed by Yu Suzuki in 1986 and reaching DOS in ports around the end of the decade. It was never about competition so much as the fantasy of the open road: you and a companion cruise a red Ferrari Testarossa convertible through sun-drenched European-style landscapes, chasing checkpoints against the clock rather than rival racers. The famous branching map lets you choose left or right at the end of each stage, opening up multiple routes and endings and encouraging replay.

The original cabinet was a technical showcase, with fast sprite-scaling pseudo-3D and a deluxe sit-down version that physically tilted with the corners. Just as memorable was the soundtrack, which you selected from an in-car radio: breezy tunes like Magical Sound Shower and Passing Breeze became icons of the era. The driving itself is pure arcade, all high-speed drifts through traffic with a generous, joyful sense of momentum.

The DOS conversions inevitably lost some of the arcade's fluidity and colour, and the hardware of the day struggled to reproduce that silky scaling, so they are a compromised way to experience it. Even so, the essence survives: OutRun's laid-back, scenic take on racing has aged beautifully as an idea, and it remains one of the most influential and imitated driving games ever made.