The 1990s were a time of incredible productivity and creativity at Sega, particularly in the arcade space. Yu Suzuki and Sega’s AM2 division wowed audiences with the incredible Model 1 board and the fluid, realistic racing action of Virtua Racing in 1992, and they further proved the system’s power the following year with Virtua Fighter. Though not the first 3D fighting game, it was the one that revolutionized the genre. AM2 created an immersive experience that cemented the notion that the future of video games lay in the third dimension.
Virtua Racing was only the tip of the polygonal iceberg, and AM2 had a major racing itch it needed to scratch. 1994 saw the release of one of its most popular titles, Daytona USA, the first game for Sega’s even more powerful Model 2 hardware, and a one that would go on to gain immortality on the Saturn and Dreamcast consoles. Critically acclaimed, it was immensely popular in arcades, topping the charts and winning multiple awards in Europe, Japan, and North America. With such a huge hit, fans expected AM2 to immediately begin working on a sequel. One was indeed coming, but it would only happen after a bit of restructuring within Sega that led to the creation of a new AM studio, AM Annex. That group was run by Tetsuya Mizuguchi and stocked with members who had worked on Sega Rally and Manx TT Superbike.
There was already a bit of internal rivalry at Sega between Suzuki’s AM2 and Hisao Oguchi’s AM3 (makers of the stellar Sega Rally Championship) that extended back before the new division was formed. AM3 had swelled to around 100 members, causing part to be broken off. AM Annex was deep in development of its own racing game, which would be released in September 1996 as Sega Touring Car Championship, and AM2 responded to this internal competition by going in a different direction than most expected. Instead of collectively prioritizing Daytona 2 – which was in the works – they split into two sub-groups within the team. One, headed by Makoto Osaki, Naotake Nishimura, and Takashi Fujimura, moved forward with the Daytona sequel. The other, led by Toshihiro Nagoshi, a Sega veteran who had joined the AM2 division in 1989 as a designer, began brainstorming a racing title of its own.
By this time, Sega was finalizing its new Model 3 board. It would be the most powerful hardware system available, with two Lockheed Martin R3D/Pro-1000 custom graphics chips, each capable of rendering over 750,000 polygons per second and advanced graphical features like full-color texture mapping with 16 million colors, multiple light sources, and specular reflection/shading. Model 3 was over three times as powerful as its predecessor and could produce graphics more lifelike than anything seen in arcades before, like eye movements and facial expressions. As both Daytona USA 2 and Nagoshi’s project were being developed internally at AM2, they shared the same hardware and engine, as well as other elements, like the control scheme and heads up display (HUD).
Sega’s Next Big Racer
Work on the new racer began in April 1996 under the project title SuperCar Race, though the name would eventually be changed to Scud Race (Sport Car Ultimate Race). Nagoshi chose to use “SCUD” because it was an odd-sounding word. “Sometimes, unfamiliar keywords can be more memorable,” he explained. “You wonder what it means, look it up in a dictionary, and maybe you can figure out what it means. Well, maybe war buffs can figure it out [a reference to the Soviet-era SCUD missile], but ‘SCUD’ makes you want to look it up in a dictionary.” It was also a reference to the BPR Global GT Series, a sports car race series that ran from 1994 to 1996 and included production supercars like Porsches and Ferraris. The BPR series logo appeared during the attract mode and was prominently displayed on the doors of each of the cars.
About 80 percent of the staff from the first Daytona USA moved over to the project, including the entire core group. After finishing that game, the team debated what type of racer to do next. Some wanted to develop a game that was completely different, while others wanted to tweak Daytona’s existing formula. They chose the latter, hoping to improve on Sega’s blockbuster. Several ideas had been left on the drawing board during Daytona’s development, and Nagoshi’s team now had a chance to resurrect them. Nagoshi knew the risks involved with playing with success. “Changing things is easy but evolving them is tricky,” he warned. Whereas Daytona USA was U.S. focused and centered around NASCAR vehicles, Scud Race’s supercars were supposed to be more global in appeal. AM2 wanted to inject the “fear of cars” into the game, concentrating on the thrill and excitement of racing along at 300 kph without stressing players. Nagoshi also wanted cars that people would instantly recognize, like the world-class vehicles in the BPR Series. To that end, he traveled to Ferrari’s Italian factory in Modena to negotiate a license directly. He unfortunately didn’t have the personal status or influence to seal the deal, but thankfully, being an employee of one of the biggest video game companies in the world was enough to make things happen.
Creative focus wasn’t the only way in which AM2 hoped to distinguish Scud Race from Daytona USA. The team wasn’t afraid to make use of the power of the Model 3 board and emphasized the four cars that would be playable (Dodge Viper, Ferrari F40, McLaren F1, and Porsche 911). Scud Race used the Step 1.5 version of the Model 3, giving it a higher CPU clock rate and a faster 3D engine. While more powerful, the new revision presented a challenge for Nagoshi’s crew during development, since it hadn’t been finalized before Scud Race’s development began. The constantly-changing specifications put a lot of pressure on the team, but they were able to produce incredible results with the platform.“ I can’t tell you how many polygons we’ve used for each of the cars,” Nagoshi quipped, “but suffice it to say that if we made, say the Ferrari from Super GT [the game’s eventual U.S. name] on the Model 1 board, we would use about half of the entire capacity of the board. If we displayed two Super GT cars, we’d have no more polygons left.” Next Generation magazine calculated that each car consisted of about 3,000 polygons, more than three times the number used for cars in Daytona USA. Scud Race also gave its vehicles graphical features that were not previously possible, like Gouraud shading to make them look smoother and less angular, reflections to make the sun glint off the paint, transparent windows, and perfectly-round wheels. Scud Race was slated to be the Model 3 board’s debut title, a spot it lost to Virtua Fighter 3, but there was a silver lining to the delay. AM2 now had more time to streamline its software to make the game run faster and add more cars (as many as 40). In the end, Scud Race had around three times as many cars overall as Daytona USA. It was also far enough along in development to beat out that game’s sequel as the debut racing title for the Model 3 system.
The result was a racing experience that stood out visually and had a unique style of play, with focus on the sensation of driving supercars, not competition. The cars in Scud Race each controlled differently thanks to the game’s realistic steering and Sega’s proprietary “cradle system” motion base, which provided force feedback that let players feel the counter-pull of gravity as they took turns. Scud Race’s handling was more gradual than Daytona’s, which was heavier in turns, making drifting a smoother experience. Moreover, the shifting mechanism directly influenced the car’s speed and movements, enabling the player to navigate turns and spins with precision. They could recover from a spin and continue at the same speed as before, maintaining control and momentum.
Suzuki, who loved making racing games, often chimed in with valuable advice on how to make the game control better, particularly the drift mechanic. Nagoshi was also encouraged by his staff, who found the game enjoyable to play throughout the development process, but he wasn’t satisfied. “I made it clear: we just can’t leave it as it is,” he warned. “When something is new, people find it exciting at first, but after a few months, they stop talking about it.” Sega was known for creating titles whose popularity extended beyond their initial arcade lifespans, and that was the goal Nagoshi was aiming for. His job at Sega was to consistently come up with new products, but as a game maker, he wanted to create something that people would continue to play for years. He couldn’t be content with a game that was merely fun; he wanted something great.
With that in mind, AM2 made the tracks themselves more varied in look and style. Nagoshi didn’t consider circuits to be visually appealing and wanted tracks with more character and simple imagery that could be easily identifiable to players. Scud Race included a total of four tracks: two beginners (Dolphin Tunnel during the day and Twilight Airport at night), one intermediate (Mystic Ruins, a favorite of the development staff for internal competition), and one advanced (Classic Castle). Development began with the advanced course, an unusual choice, but Nagoshi found it to be the most memorable because AM2 was still exploring what the Model 3 platform could do and experimenting with structures, like a coliseum, as well as different track layouts. According to Nagoshi, there was only going to be one beginner course, Twilight Airport, but he felt that racing at night was too difficult for new players. As the game neared the end of its development, another beginner course, Dolphin Tunnel, was added as a daytime option. The track was originally conceived for Daytona USA 2 but couldn’t be implemented. Nagoshi revived it to show off what the new Model 3 board could do. A few other nods to AM2’s star racing franchise were added, as well. “You know how there was a spinning slot machine on the beginner’s course in Daytona? So, we thought we should add a spinning object this time too, and after thinking about it, we decided on a spinning Saturn logo,” Nagoshi recalled.
Aware of the team’s pursuit of the most authentic driving experience possible, Suzuki suggested that Nagoshi sample sounds from the Fuji Speedway. On that recommendation, the sound team set up microphones in October 1996 at different angles to record engine sounds of various qualities from 10 different cars as they sped by at around 124 mph (200 kph). They were even able to race a few laps (which scared Nagoshi out of his mind). Sound designer Hideaki Miyamoto was looking for more elaborate audio to accompany the fast-paced action, and he wanted to go beyond merely recording the cars’ acceleration and braking. He wanted each vehicle to have its particular sounds while racing, and the team was able to recreate them so accurately that during gameplay, people knowledgeable of supercars could identify the individual vehicles they were from.
As genuine and realistic as the game was, simplicity was a core principle for Nagoshi. Scud Race was meant to be accessible to gamers of all skill levels, particularly those without a lot of experience. “I was bad at games when I first started playing,” he admitted. “At the arcade, I’d often think to myself, ‘Who could even beat this game?’ In an interactive medium, if you don’t make it to the end yourself, you won’t see it. That’s why you let players reach a goal. Of course, the game up to that point has to be fun, but it’s very important to me that players can reach a goal in my games.” The inclusion of four different camera views was part of this effort to make the game as intuitive as possible. Still, Scud Race was not made to be a true driving simulation. Nagoshi admitted that as a game creator, he viewed realism as merely a springboard for fun. The same philosophy had been applied to Daytona USA.
AM2’s vision was a proven one, and it would continue to bear fruit. The further along Scud Race’s development progressed, the more it began to take on its own identity. Eventually, the team stopped making comparisons to Daytona USA. It was then that Nagoshi knew that they had something special. He had seen the same thing occur during Daytona’s creation process. The AM2 team kept comparing it to Suzuki’s masterpiece, OutRun, until it became something unique.
Scud Launch at Arcades
Sega produced two different models of Scud Race: a deluxe cabinet (which was motion-based) and later a smaller, two-player twin version. The deluxe type moved during play and was designed and built by Sega’s renowned AM4 team, the minds behind its taikaen line of machines that included Galaxy Force II and the R360. The head of the design team, AM4 System Design Manager Hideshi Nishimura, had also overseen the development of Daytona USA and Sega Rally Championship’s cabinets. Although Sega had since scaled back the manufacturing of its moving cabinets for racing games to instead focus on ones with multiplayer linking capabilities, Scud Race was the first in the genre for the Model 3, and AM2 had something special in mind. It had been decided from the beginning of Scud Race’s planning that it would include an immersive, moving cabinet.
Scud Race was small for a deluxe model – AM4 even managed to slim down the depth of the monitor to reduce the machine’s overall footprint – but it was quite comfortable, having been modeled after the interior of a supercar. AM4’s goal was to emulate the interior of a real supercar as much as possible, providing feedback from beyond the game’s onscreen imagery and steering wheel. The Japanese version of the deluxe cabinet used an enhanced version of the seat first used in Sega Touring Car and had a rear speaker (one of four) dedicated solely to playing the game’s music. Like so many of Sega’s other taikaen cabinets, Scud Racer’s was made to control as good as it looked, utilizing a four-way shift gear and hydraulics that could recreate the feel of powersliding and that vibrated during impact. It was designed by Nishimura, who used those experiences to make Scud Race’s cabinet much more realistic. “Up until now,” he revealed in a 1996 interview, “Sega’s racing games have had a vibration mechanism on the steering wheel itself, but this one is based on the idea of providing a more natural feel for the player and a feeling closer to a real car.” The back of the machine referenced the motion feature by displaying the letters “D.R.M.S.” across the back, which stood for “Direct Rolling Motorized System.” Moreover, up to eight cabinets could be connected for multiplayer gaming, a feature probably reserved for the most upscale game centers given the machine’s $4,400 cost.
A finished version of Scud Race was revealed on December 10, 1996, at a private show in Tokyo. Multiple Sega arcade titles debuted alongside it, including the Model 2 ski game Sega Ski Super G and the Compile-made Puyo Puyo Sun. As attractive as those machines were, the star of the show was Scud Race. Sega had four deluxe cabinets linked together, two on either side of a massive projection television screen. A huge crowd gathered, and the queue to play the machines became quite long.
Even after Scud Race was made public, rumors were rampant that it was indeed the sequel to AM2’s NASCAR-themed hit. Nagoshi made it clear that it was not. “Scud Race is not Daytona 2,” he stated to the press. “The development team is the same, so many believed that we would automatically be doing a sequel to Daytona. We wanted to change the team in order to ensure a different kind of game, but we never did. In the end, we needn’t have worried because we’ve succeeded in producing something with a completely different look.” Despite Nagoshi’s candid explanation, many in the press refused to differentiate Scud Race from Daytona and considered the game to at least be a spiritual sequel. For instance, in its reporting on Scud Race’s debut at the 1997 Amusement Trades Exhibition International (ATEI) Show in London, Electronic Games Monthly remarked about the game’s title, saying, “A better name would be Daytona 2, as that is what it really is,” and Britain’s Sega Saturn Magazine called it a “quasi-sequel to Daytona USA.”
Scud Race was location tested in several arcades in Europe and Asia, and Nagoshi didn’t presume that it would be an instant hit like Daytona USA, and he fully expected only around 30 percent of players to even find it fun. He hoped player reactions would provide more critical feedback during testing, so AM2 could at least improve the game further. To his delight, his fears had been unfounded, and the overwhelming majority of players loved Scud Race. The game was a sensation in arcades during testing, and it supposedly even earned rave reviews from Sega’s rivals.
Much of Scud Race’s popularity came from the multiple included camera views that helped to create the sense of immersion Nishimura had been aiming for. One of them was included with specific players in mind. Some prefer the steering wheel in the middle of the dashboard, rather than on the left, to get a better feel of the car’s width while driving, and Scud Race included such a perspective. Since few people seemed to use it during testing, however, the team contemplated removing it. In the end, the viewpoint remained, along with another interior camera angle that removed the steering wheel from view. The other two featured perspectives were from outside and behind the car.
Another of the game’s strongest features was its sound effects, and many players praised them during the game’s testing phase. AM2 thus decided to favor the effects over the music, something Nagoshi lamented, as he was a fan of Hiroko Hamamo’s vocals in “Flight in the Dark,” the Twilight Airport theme. Unfortunately, players weren’t able to appreciate Hideaki Miyamoto’s excellent score. The composer, a member of AM2 since 1993, had already worked with Sega’s System 32 board to write music for the fighting game Burning Rival and the basketball title Hard Dunk. His most high-profile score thus far had been for the arcade and Saturn versions of Virtua Cop 2. Scud Race was his first chance to work with the Model 3 hardware.
Going back to Nagoshi’s comment about Scud Race’s name, only a single person commented on it, leaving the designer unsure if anyone truly cared about it; however, when the time came to test the game in the U.S, Sega of America convinced its Japanese management to change the title due a possible association with the SCUD missiles used by Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War, an event still fresh in American minds (and pretty spot on considering Nagoshi’s intention with the name). Retitled Sega Super GT, it was tested at the Sega City arcade in Irvine, California and was quite popular, reportedly becoming the fastest-grossing arcade machine of all time. While that claim may perhaps be a bit hyperbolic, the game’s success was convincing. In a scant five weeks, Sega Super GT out-earned all of Sega’s other single-player units, including the mighty Daytona USA. Additionally, at the Amusement Showcase International (ASI) show, Sega presented test earnings data showing the game topping $1,800 in its first week at Sega City, at $1 per play. Other locations weren’t as profitable but were still high. “We placed Sega Super GT on test at various locations around the country, and the results were astounding,” beamed Sega Enterprises USA head Al Stone. “Sega Super GT was at the top of each location’s collections reports, with extremely impressive earnings.” It should be noted that Stone was mostly referring to large, family amusement center locations like GameWorks, where patrons also purchased food and merchandise. Those types of locations seemed to be Sega’s target audience, with Marketing/Sales Vice President Ken Anderson specifying that “every family entertainment center and good-sized arcade will need to have one.” Still, even during testing, Sega Super GT was at the top of RePlay magazine’s “Players’ Choice” charts, competing with other racers like Cruis’n World and San Francisco Rush.
Sega launched Scud Race in Japan in December 1996 and the following year in Britain and the U.S. Shortly after the deluxe version arrived, AM2 started patching problems discovered after release. During the process, they began to consider making some tweaks in gameplay and presentation for the upcoming twin model version. Based on input from Suzuki, Nagoshi experimented by adjusting the game to make it play a bit more like Daytona USA, giving players a rolling start on the beginner stages and adjusting the number of rival cars according to difficulty level. He was surprised at how fun the game was, and in short order, he had something he jokingly referred to as “Daytona +.” The cars now displayed, from left to right, their respective characteristics of EASY, NORMAL, HIGH TORQUE, and HIGH SPEED, and their order of appearance was changed. Also, car performance was improved by adding throttle control, even while drifting, which allowed for bigger arcs, and they became more controllable when going from a tail slide into a drift. Finally, the AI of rival cars was altered so that instead of avoiding crashes, they now tried to cause them. A “retire” counter was even added to track how many crashed into players. Cars that hit the player would be retired from the race, and players could see just how bad their driving really was. These adjustments came with the twin model and were then applied retroactively to all previously-released cabinets.
A year later, Sega released an update, called Scud Race Plus, but kept it exclusive to Japan (it was still possible to switch the region, where the name changed to Sega Super GT Plus). A few additions were included, such as a new, oval-shaped Super Beginner track where players raced an oval course throughout the floor of a house against buses, tanks, and rocket cars; mirror and time lap modes, as well as a few extra cars. Interestingly, the oval track had originally been Scud Racer’s beginner course. It was removed early on in development because the AM2 team thought it was too reminiscent of Daytona USA’s beginner track. AM2 then realized that the game may have been too hard, so it toned down the difficulty in the other three courses and added Dolphin Tunnel. The oval design remained the easiest to complete and became the new Super Beginner track for the update.
No Ride Home
There was speculation that Sega would port Scud Race to the Saturn, perhaps utilizing a rumored upgrade for the machine that was said to be in development in 1997 with Lockheed Martin for a home release of Virtua Fighter 3. Nothing ever materialized, however, and as the Saturn gave way to the Dreamcast, speculation about a port arose once more. Some in the press even announced that Scud Race was going to be part of the Dreamcast’s launch lineup in North America. Regrettably, when that machine was launched in North America on September 9, 1999, Scud Race was nowhere to be found. It would never see a console or PC port. A tech demo of the game running on Dreamcast hardware had been shown behind closed doors at the Sega New Challenge Conference in Japan in May 1998 (see it below), and when asked about whether a port of Scud Race was ever under development, Nagoshi replied: “No, just a demo. A lot of people really wanted it, but… we didn’t because… huh, I really don’t know why.” He also mentioned that at the time, some of the younger AM2 staff were interested in bringing Daytona 2 and Scud Race to home consoles. It is unknown why those conversions never happened, but the tracks from both games were eventually included as unlockable bonuses in the Xbox version of OutRun 2 in 2004.
The Dreamcast was certainly powerful enough to run Model 3 games, as evidenced by its version of Virtua Fighter 3tb, and online play would have been an amazing addition. Sega released relatively few of its 31 Model 3 titles on the console beyond the updated version of its flagship fighter. Sega Bass Fishing, Fighting Vipers 2, Sega Rally 2, Virtua Striker 2, and Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram are the only ones that found their way home.
Beyond a producer role in various Daytona USA 2 updates and directing a Dreamcast release of the original Daytona, Nagoshi would be done designing traditional racing titles at Sega after Scud Race. He wasn’t out of the genre entirely, though. His next game in the genre would be the phenomenal F-Zero AX in 2003. By that time, however, Sega had left the console market and was working in tandem with Nintendo to bring the game to arcades and the GameCube. Nagoshi would go on to achieve even greater acclaim with the Yakuza franchise, which began on the PlayStation 2 and continues to this day.
Two for the Winners Circle
It would have been interesting to see Nagoshi push the Model 3 hardware to its limit. He admitted that there was still a lot of power that remained untapped and figured Scud Race used around 90 percent of its potential (he put Daytona 2 at around 80 percent). “I don’t think we’ve pushed the limits of the Model 3 yet, but we did as much as we could,” he confessed. Still, he had no regrets. After five years working on both the first Daytona and Scud Race, the AM2 team behind both games would not likely remain intact for its next project. Nagoshi was proud of what he had accomplished with them and for good reasons. Both titles are top tier in their genre and represent the pinnacle of Sega’s arcade racing brilliance. It’s unfortunate that neither got the home ports it deserved, but emulation has at least preserved both for us and future generations to enjoy for years to come.
Here’s the Scud Race tech demo shown at the Sega New Challenge Conference in 1998.
Thanks to Andrej Preradovic from Translation++ for his help translating many of the sources used for this article.
Nagoshi & Suzuki image courtesy of Sega Saturn magazine.
Sources:
- “Alphas: Super GT.” Next Generation. April 1997, 62-66.
- “AM R&D Dept. 2 Express Weekly, Vol. 63.” Sega Saturn Magazine. August 15, 1997, 156.
- “AM R&D Dept. 2 Toshihiro Nagoshi Produces Scud Race.” Sega Saturn Magazine. January 1997, 218-219.
- “AOU Show 1997: Sega: Scud Race Twin Type. Computer & Video Games. May 1997, 85.
- “Coin-Operated: Scud Race.” Sega Saturn Magazine [UK]. 92-95.
- “Follow-Up: It’s Called Scud Race!” Sega Saturn Magazine. December 22, 1996, 268-270.
- Hasan, Ali and Heidi Kemps. “Interview: Toshiro Nagoshi.” The Next Level. December 21, 2004.
- “Last Minute Update: ATEI London Show.” Electronic Gaming Monthly. March 1997, 94.
- “Let’s Ride Scud Race! Nagoshi Interview.” Sega Magazine. January 1997, 46-48.
- “Scud Race.” Edge. February 1997, 51-54.
- “Sega AM2’s Anticipated Second Racing Game! Scud Race.” Hyper Saturn Magazine. February 1997, 52-55.
- “Sega Promotes 64-Bit CG Board ‘Model 3.’” Game Machine. May 15, 1996, 26.
- “Sega’s First ‘Model 3’ Driver. Next Generation. May 1997, 28.
- “Sega Super GT.” RePlay. March 1997, 98-99.
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