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The Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 959 are two of the world's fastest supercars, both capable of 200mph plus. You own a beautiful red F40 and you know it's the best car in the world; cruising around New York with your girlfriend in the passenger seat is a great feeling. But then some creep in a 959 mouths off about his car being the best, despite having an engine with sewing machine hum rather than a Ferrari howl. You challenge him to race across America, from New York to Los Angeles, East Coast to West. It's strictly illegal and the cops are after you, but you're determined to show this guy up.

Before you start the race you can choose between a manual gear change (hi/lo) and automatic transmission. Then it's onto the streets of the Big Apple for a tyre-screeching start. There's plenty of other traffic on the road, including police cars which try and bump you off the road! If the 959 somehow gets into the lead, press space for turbo: the exhaust flames and the car zooms forward faster than even the 'Overheat' gauge at the bottom of the screen.

Each load is divided into four levels, each with its own time limit. When time runs out you slowly come to a stop - game over. You have five continue plays however. Complete a level with time to spare and it's added to your time limit for the next level. At the end of the level, time remaining is totalled up for a high score. Then you can pop into the workshop to choose from hi-grip tyres (extra traction on snow and grit), special turbo (faster acceleration), and hi-power engine (higher top speed).

All the extra speed will be needed if you haven't beaten the 959 - in a great animated sequence he waves to your girlfriend at the checkpoint, and she gets out to go for a ride with him! The race to get her back takes you through deserts, forests (with logs to bounce over), snowstorms, cities at night with oil on the road, and lots more besides. Sixteen levels make for one spectacular arcade game!

While Power Drift offers the ultimate in single-load arcade racing, Turbo OutRun has gone for a multi-load extravaganza that more than justifies itself with masses of variety and high quality presentation.

The basic coin-op has so many good details, like the snowstorms, the aggressive police cars and the burning oil that only a multi-load could capture. And, as the great intro title indicates, they've worked overtime (lots of it!) to cram each load with detail.

From the prancing horses and snappy flicking needles on the speedometer, to the overwhelming speed of the graphics in Turbo mode, this is one classy product.

Well, well, well - talk about squeezing a quart into a pint-pot and with no overflow either!! Being a sceptic of all things involving 3D on the C64 I'm now facing a double barrelled line-up of incredibly well done race games, namely Power Drift and now Turbo OutRun.

The presentation in Turbo is first class wherever you look: static pictures, bonus scenes, even the map at the end of your game is brilliant. With some lengthy Maniacs of Noise tunes to race to and some incredible samples this is the best presented program I've seen all year. It's got *all* the trimmings that made the coin-op such a fun game to play.

At last we have a decent horizon effect in a C64 race game and Probe have kept the speed up all the way. There are also some excellent little touches like the logs to jump over, oil and barricades. On top of all this you get superb effects like the parallax scrolling in the background and weather.

Undoubtedly the best C64 conversion of a Sega coin-op yet.

Mark Kelly and Steve Crow must now be counted true stars of the C64 scene. After a great conversion of Mr. Heli, they've moved up to Turbo OutRun with deceptive ease. Rather than just getting the gameplay right, they've gone after the whole look and feel of the coin-op.

Never before has an arcade game's amazing presentation been so brilliantly recreated. And the game itself is terrific. The nasty bends on the second load really make you sweat, while the police cars towards the end of the game have Ferrari engines to match your own and quickly turn an enjoyable bit of lawbreaking into a nightmare chase.

All the race games we've seen so far have been good, if not excellent, but Turbo stands out for its amazing ambition and achievement.

Presentation 98%
Superb hip-hop intro tune, wonderful loading, bonus and end screens! Plans or cassette version promise to keep everything in, while minimising waiting.

Graphics 95%
Fabulous F40, fast and amooth backgrounds/cars wth lots of variety (Sixteen stages) and tons of nice touches.

Sound 96%
Incredible in-game from the Maniacs of Noise and great FX.

Hookability 97%
Typical arcade addictivity exerts an irresistible pull.

Lastability 96%
Continue-play options allow you to see a lot of the game, but getting the girl and the high score will keep you coming back.

Overall 97%
Perfectly presented with all the superb playability of the coin-op.