There's even a selection of classic driving titles with sprites and pseudo 3D environments that can still be enjoyed in arcades today. One of these games is OutRun, and following on from the release of OutRun 2 in arcades last year, Sega has brought the title to Xbox to go head to head against rival products in a boomer year-end market.

Like all the iconic Sega driving games, OutRun 2 follows a tried and proven formula. In the case of OutRun 2, realism is all but absent in the name of balancing the experience. Drifting has been made essential for good course times despite the scarcity of sharp turns, and because the related handling and physics dynamic is made to measure, it can take some getting used to. There is, however, a subtlety to the controls and mean players will be uncovering techniques for success some time after first picking up the game.

OutRun 2 can be a punishing experience in true arcade fashion. You'll almost come to a complete stop if you mess up, usually after spinning or flipping or both. The berms are as hazardous as roadside barriers, and just as drifting feels completely unnatural, so does the resulting loss of control when contacting the wrong surface or another car.

As well as straight racing, mission modes are available with section by section objectives such as drifting or knocking down cones. This is one mode where your driver's girlfriend, riding alongside, expresses her approval or otherwise at your skills. Her mood will change as rapidly as the sky in OutRun 2, and your motivation to please her whims is both a prerequisite for enjoying the game's humour and for being successful at driving.

Xbox Live and system link modes allow up to eight players to race together. Live also has a time trial mode so even you're the only one in the lobby, you can race a ghost and get your time ranked for all to see. A range of cars and courses provide ample content for single player modes, but without a doubt the online experience is the game's greatest strength.

OutRun 2 is an absolute pleasure to play, its structure as much pure arcade fun as the music selection and your girlfriend's behaviour, even when she's bashing your head on the door. That's the kind of frustration you might be feeling yourself thanks to the unforgiving environments, but the arcade-pure gameplay is so well balanced that nothing seems unfair.

Where Burnout 3 has forsaken the core elements of its previous outings in the name of providing an even more extreme experience, OutRun 2 offers exactly what we have come to expect from the title, and from Sega.

The conversion itself is virtually perfect, providing exactly the same experience with the same graphical detail and features, notwithstanding the many extras, as the arcade release.

There are even extra tracks formed from Daytona USA 2 and Scud Race - games never released on a console but exhibiting the same driving model and therefore ideal for inclusion in OutRun 2. Remixed versions of the original sound track also appear. Thanks to the lasting appeal of Sega's arcade legacy, the entire experience will be as comfortingly familiar to new gamers as to old, while the chance to spend quality time at home and online provides the best such package seen this year and one of the best ever on a home console.