Neil Coxhead speaks to GTW about work on Outrun Europe...

"Actually, I've just looked through your web page again and I brought it back to me in a better light than I had in my mind.

The game was done in a mixture of bitmap mode and character mode which is why the screen update is quite slow, which is what spoils it really. But it enabled the car sprite to be much better looking that it would have been otherwise (not that that makes it a good decision). I was proud of the horizon background 2 dimensional scrolling when going round corners and up/down over hills. The backgrounds were very nicly drawn by Steve Crow in character mode.

The roadside objects and other cars were multiplexed sprites which is why they are thin and but they move very smoothly. And they didn't sort very well (or at all) with the main car. The tunnels I think worked quite well, it was a bit of trickery to create the effect (combination of changing horizon background and roadside colour I think).

The presentation looked pretty good (apart from the well done screen), probably bitmap mode again. We had an in-car radio with changable tracks which GTA has ripped off since. Music by ex Maniacs Of Noise's Jeroen Tel was good.

So visually and technically it was not bad, but gameplay wise it was horrible. Outrun Europa was all character mode which was much faster to draw and so the gameplay improved. I also did Sega's Galaxy Force for Activision around that time, and that had a good character mode based 3D engine which I was proud of.

When I sold the development disks on eBay to Mr Fox a few years ago (instead of chucking them in the bin as I nearly did) I never imagined they would actually end up being reanimated. Perhaps I should have binned them !"

Neil Coxhead.