Nestled deep in the heart of virtual Yokohama down an ordinary alleyway lies the Sasaki Game Center – a virtual playground celebrating Sega’s arcade heritage. The arcade has become a staple of Sega’s Like A Dragon series but with the latest series entry, we’ve reached a new milestone – Sega has finally, for the first time, introduced official Model 3 emulation with it comes one of the finest racing games ever made.
Daytona USA 2: Battle on the Edge – now known, thanks to licensing issues, as Sega Racing Classic 2 – is an arcade racing game from the legendary AM2 and it stands as one of the fastest, most elegantly designed racing games of all time. It’s not alone either, as a second Model 3 game is also included – Fighting Vipers 2. Daytona USA 2 has never been available on home consoles before, but Fighting Vipers 2 has in the form of a creditable Dreamcast port, thought to be uncannily similar to its arcade counterpart. But how close is it really? Thanks to Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, now we can find out.
To understand Sega’s Model 3 arcade technology, we need to put 1996 into context. This is the year Nintendo 64 arrived on the market and the year that PlayStation really started to take hold across the industry. It was the year of games like Tekken 2 and Soul Edge, the year of Quake, Tomb Raider, Super Mario 64 and Waverace. On the PC side, the 3DFX Voodoo card arrived on the scene introducing high resolution rendering, faster frame-rates and smooth textures. But then there was Virtua Fighter 3.
