Sega Rubs NASCAR Racing

While here in Japan for Square Millennium, we caught a glimpse of yet another Sega arcade machine being tested near Shinjuku in Tokyo. Sega has recently stepped up its presence in the arcade market with games like Samba De Amigo, Crazy Taxi, Jambo Safari, and Emergency Call Ambulance.

Sega seems to be bringing things back to one of its core genres, racing, with its latest title - NASCAR Rubbin' Racing from R&D Dept. #5. As for what the title means, well, we don't know. But what we do know is that this is another deluxe racing game from Sega. Players sit in a hydraulic chair that tilts when you hit another car (or if someone else hits you). It's a time-based racer, but instead of having to finish laps in a certain amount of time, you must work your way up to a certain place in the race in a set amount of time. Reach the goal, and the timer will reset with a new goal.

Graphically, it looks very much like a NAOMI-powered game. It runs at 60 frames per second with no slowdown. It also has smoothly textured environments and cars. You can clearly see car sponsors' names from any viewpoint on the track. From what we saw, there was just the standard NASCAR circular track. And the machine we saw was just a single-seat deluxe machine, so we didn't see any multiplayer races (though this kind of racing would be a natural fit for linking eight machines together, eh?).

This is definitely one to watch out for.