by [name redacted]
As we strolled past the Megaking booth on the show floor, I spotted an OutRun2 machine in the distance. Drawing closer, I noticed that it was a feature of the CRI (now a subdivision of SEGA-AM2) booth. A polite elderly Japanese fellow swiped Brandon’s and my ID cards; he handed us pamphlets and old-fashioned Japanese fans with the CRI logo on them. Only two people were before us. The initial plan was, I — being such a fan of the original OutRun — would play the game, and subsequently write up my impressions. Time was short.
As we waited, I read through a bilingual “Naze Nani CRI” comic, which illustrated for kids on both shores the benefits of MPEG SofDec and the ADX compression algorithm. A middle-aged Asian man stood behind me, arms crossed in front of his ID badge. “Do you like the original?” he asked. We nodded and grinned, politely.