Neo Drift Out (CD Version)

I’ve never thought of Visco in the same light as SNK or ADK in terms of their Neo Geo offerings. I’ve heard before that Visco is the “K-Mart” brand of the Neo Geo, and I would have to agree with that. They have some oddball Neo Geo titles under their belt, such as Captain Tomaday, Flip Shot, and Ganryu. Visco did have some moments, though, where the planets aligned, some pigs flew, and they made some truly great games. Neo Drift Out: New Technology is one of those games.

Neo Drift Out isn’t Visco’s first attempt at an arcade racing game. The Drift Out series started in 1991 with the first game simply titled “Drift Out”. In 1994, the second title in the series was released as “Drift Out ’94: The Hard Order”. I’m not sure why the order was hard, but I’ll trust Visco with that one. Finally, the last game in the series is the focus here, released in 1996, “Neo Drift Out: New Technology” was the last racing game that Visco would make. As it turns out, they would have some competition on the same platform in the form of ADK developing and releasing OverTop around the same time as Neo Drift Out. I personally think that Neo Drift Out stands above ADK’s offering to be the best racing title on the Neo Geo, but let’s delve into why that is.

I have to say, the gameplay of Neo Drift Out is a treat. The handling model of the previous Drift Out game, Drift Out ’94: The Hard Order, was twitchy, overly responsive. There were plenty of times that I ended up steering towards the wall and when I tried to correct for it, went right into the other wall. OverTop has the opposite issue. Its handling feels delayed and unresponsive when the left or right switch is first pressed. This coupled with OverTop giving out its turn instructions at the moment in which you should be steering, and you’ll end up driving into walls plenty of times. Neo Drift Out strikes a perfect balance between these two. You can make fine steering adjustments by tapping the stick left or right, but it doesn’t feel twitchy. When you need to really turn for tight corners, you can do that too, and at full speed by simply holding the stick left or right through the corner. Neo Drift Out gives you turning instructions in advance, and the picture it gives you is exactly how the corner looks. Because of this, with practice, you can learn how to take each corner in the game just from the little image the game gives you at the “right”, “left”, or “turn ahead” prompts. I can’t stress just how much better Neo Drift Out plays than OverTop. It can be a little difficult to explain if you haven’t played both, so I encourage you to try them and see for yourself.

One thing that’s always surprised me about Neo Drift Out is its use of real, licensed cars from the World Rally Championship of 1996. Three cars are featured, the ST205 Toyota Celica GT-Four used by the Toyota Castrol team, the GC8 Subaru Impreza 555 used by the Subaru World Rally team, and lastly the CE9A Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution III used by the Mitsubishi Ralliart team. As a car enthusiast myself, being able to pick from these genuine rally vehicles adds to the credibility of Neo Drift Out. In the mid 90s, it wasn’t the norm for racing games to have licenses from real auto manufacturers. You would see games using designs from real cars but without the real name of the make and model. OverTop is one such game that does this, using designs from the Ferrari F50 and Lamborghini Diablo but with the names changed to skirt around not having the license. I do appreciate Visco going above and beyond to bring us real WRC vehicles to the Neo Geo.

Visually, Neo Drift Out gets the job done, and it does it well. It makes good use of the Neo’s ability to scale the screen in and out depending on how fast the vehicle is moving. It’s not extreme like Super Dodge Ball, but it’s noticeable and is effective. There’s solid variety in the stages with different driving surfaces such as dirt, snow, or tarmac. The vehicles have a solid amount of detail put into them, to where you can easily recognize what model of car you’re using. It’s nothing that will blow you away on the platform, but there’s plenty of Neo Geo titles which do worse

You won’t find too many truly memorable tunes in the soundtrack, but it does fit the mood of the game. There’s plenty of upbeat tracks which fit the great sense of speed the game gives you. What stands out to me is the music used for the attract mode and the final stage. They really made a triumphant sounding tune for the last course. At least you’re hoping it’s triumphant if you can make it to the finish in time.

On the Neo Geo CD, Neo Drift Out offers a couple of minor changes and some very brisk loading times. In the game there are hidden paths which the player can take to shave precious seconds off their time. These are animated with a prompt showing the normal path in blue, and the hidden path in grey. On the MVS version, when exiting the hidden path and getting back on the main road, the animation is shown in the exact same way as entering the hidden path. The main road is blue, and the wrong way is in grey. This can be confusing because you can mistake the wrong way for another hidden path. I mean, it’s highlighted in the same color. Visco fixed this on the CD release by highlighting the main road in green, and the wrong way is now brown with a red “X” going through it. It’s much easier to understand during gameplay. Another change is a new background during the time display after a race. I’m not sure why it was changed, but it’s there for CD owners. Neo Drift Out has a quick 25 second initial load to the main menu, 8 to 16 seconds per stage depending on which one is loading, and no load at all to get back to the main menu. It’s a fine example of why the Neo Geo CD is better than people make it out to be.

What kind of a value proposition does Neo Drift Out offer you? As usual, it depends on how much you want to spend for this type of game. The replay value of this title lies in practice, because a 1-credit-clear will only take you between seven and eight minutes. On the Neo Geo CD, you can expect to pay between $280 dollars and $350 dollars depending on condition and completeness. It is considered to be one of the “high end” titles on the CD platform. The MVS cart comes in at a little less, around $175 dollars to $250 dollars. Is that kind of cost worth it for a 7-minute game? That’s up to you. For myself personally I had always wanted a copy of Neo Drift Out. When I got my Neo Geo CD this was high on my priority list of games to purchase. Real rally action on the Neo Geo? The best racing game on the platform? Yes, please!

Editor: I rather enjoy this game, and own it on MVS, so be sure to check out the AES/MVS review to see my take on the non-CD release.