Virtua Racing is an arcade racing game that was developed and published by Sega and was released in the arcades in 1992. It can also be found on the Sega Genesis in 1994, and it even had a Sega 32X and Sega Saturn port later on. The game is a 3D polygon style racing game. Matter of fact the game was the first 3D polygon racing game that Sega ever released. This was before Daytona USA, Sega GT Championship, and other great racing games that they developed in the arcade. You will drive a Formula 1 car on 3 different tracks that are setup by the difficulty levels in the game. Those levels are Beginner, Intermediate and Expert. The track names in that order are, Big Forrest, Bay Bridge, and Acropolis.

Each racetrack has it's own environment and layout with winding turns and long straight stretches to go at high speeds. Each race will have 16 opponents, and there is even a multiplayer mode that you can race against a friend, which in the arcade, you can play against each other on a twin cabinet, which is 2 machines built into 1 arcade cabinet.

The graphics are nice, the game is in a 3D polygon style and this was huge for it's time. The game is colorful, the layout of the tracks are nice, the game runs very smooth, there is no slowdowns, glitching or anything like that. I think it's very impressive on what Sega did back in the day, especially looking back on the game now. The music is great, and very catchy. If you played a lot of Sega racing games back in the day, they always had music that was catchy, but cheesy at the same time, and I really like that, it was kind of a trademark for Sega when it came to arcade racing games. The sound effects are nice as well, from the sounds of the cars, the screeching of the tires, the crashing, nothing I can complain about. The controls are great. Of course playing the game on MAME, I was using a PlayStation 3 controller, steering is really easy, maybe a little bit slippery, throttle and brake is very easy, and responsive, the controls do not feel tank like, you just have to time your movements at the right time, especially the break and throttle.

Overall I am very impressed with Virtua Racing, even to this day, the game play is fun, the difficulty is nice, the graphics are good, especially for it's time, the music is great, the sound effects are nice, and the controls are great, I can't really complain too much about anything other then I wish the game had more tracks, but for an arcade game, I can kinda understand. Also the controls being a little bit slippery is a small flaw, the game is very much playable. If you like arcade style racing games, and you haven't played Virtua Racing, definitely check it out, there are many ways you can play the game, either using the MAME emulator, playing the game on here, or even finding a home console port of the game.

There is a video review of Virtua Racing that I did, and you can find it here:

You wrote a good review, giving enough details to present a good overview of what the game was. How would you compare it to other racing games of the time, especially on the SNES? Were there any glitches?

HeavyMetalGamer : WOW THAT WAS OUTSTANDING ok so I was going to read until I saw the video you linked up and watched it. I was like wow you got a cool voice! Ok apart from that I really, really enjoyed your review on youtube. Why? You basically said, and described what the game is and I liked how you used the words as well. Most of it was funny, but you still kept to keeping how it was professional wise. I wouldn't mind seeing more of those videos.

janus : Glitch wise nothing but maybe a flicker or so here and there but it's nothing noticeable unless you are really paying attention. As for other racing games. I think there are games around the time that are better, but for being a game doing the 3D polygon style graphics for that time, it's kinda in it's own league.

Eniitan : Thank you

HeavyMetalGamer : No problem. Just giving my honest opinion of what I saw, and felt when watching your review of the game. ^^