Daytona USA XBL/PSN Review

One of the biggest surprises for me recently was the announcement of Daytona USA for XBL and PSN. I have every iteration of this game that was made for home consoles. Up until now, the original Sega Saturn game was the best version where game play is concerned. With every new edition that came out, the graphics got better but the game play got worse. Even with the Dreamcast version, which surpassed the arcade version graphically, the controls were so far from the original that it was a let down. Sega went back to the drawing board and bumped up the original to high definition graphics with almost no clipping. It has the same exact controls as the Saturn game and an arranged sound track. For the first time since 1994, Sega has outdone the Saturn version of Daytona.

Sega didn’t stop with the graphic and game play enhancements, they’ve also added Achievements and Trophies, 30 challenge modes, 8-player online, Karaoke mode, Survival mode and Time Trial mode. Playing with the analog stick is perfect enough but I hear the game runs even better with a steering wheel. With leader-boards you can submit your times and compare them to your friends and other players. You can also download and view Time Trials from the top ten racers.

Graphically the cars look like they’ve been totally remodeled with enhanced textures. The clipping is almost 100% gone. Since it seems like they are using most of the code from the Saturn, there are still tiny spots of clipping which you can see if you look really hard.

Daytona is a timeless classic. Now it’s in HD and I couldn’t be happier. That’s one more game off my retro list with many more to go. Thank you Sega!