Car chases, beautiful women, cool suits, explosions, the life a spy can seem pretty glamorous.
Today we’re going to focus on the first one, I know sorry, that other ones are generally
more interesting, but we’re going to a look at the 1987 Nintendo Entertainment System
release of Spy Hunter.
Originally, Spy Hunter was an arcade game released by Bally Midway.
The control was actually a steering wheel too.
Here on the Sunsoft developed NES port you’ll be using the Nintendo controller with the
D-Pad controlling steering and speed, one button for your machine gun and another for
your special weapons, more on that later.
Spy Hunter is very arcade in style.
No plot, no ending, just a car, guns and a high score.
While avoiding civilians and taking down enemies you’ll be cruising along in the G-6155 Interceptor
a suped up spy car with machine guns in the front and fire boosters out the back!
Let’s see that one on CGR Garage sometime....
Anyway you’re not totally alone out there, from time to time a big red truck will appear
giving you special weapons used to dispatch foes.
There’s a smoke screen, making anything behind you in a cone swerve off the road.
My favorite, the oil slick that shoots out the back of your car and surface-to-air missiles
for taking down helicopters that will show up and start bombing you.
It seems pretty rare that I ever actually have missiles when the choppers show up, so
you have to just dodge their attacks.
There are three other opponents that are much more frequent however, the Switchblade car
that will come at you with wheel mounted tire slashers instantly running you off the road
if that hit you, The Road Lord with armored plating covering the entire vehicle making
them immune to your bullets, the only way to deal with them is to use your spy-like
driving skill and sideswipe them off the road, or just drive faster... and finally The Enforcer
which a limo that will pull up next to you and shot your tire out sending you to the
nearest side in fiery explosion.
There are also civilian cars to avoid.
Damage them and your score will freeze for a few seconds.
In my opinion, these guys are your worst enemy, I think I ran into more motorcycles than anything
else...
The NES port of Spy Hunter is not known as the best version by any means.
I remember playing it a ton though when I was very young.
It was probably one of the few games I owned and could actually grasp the concept of pretty
easily.
Drive forward and don’t blow up.
Pretty simple.
The game also gives you a lead in time of about 90 seconds where you can die as many
times as you want.
I think the thing I remember the best is the Peter Gunn theme that plays throughout the
game.
The developers wanted to use the James Bond theme and I think some of the earliest versions
actually used it, but due to rights issues it got switched and now in my head it’s
always what comes to mind when I think of Spy Hunter.
The game’s biggest criticism is the collision detection.
There’s a fairly well known glitch where you can actually drive on the side of the
road through the grass and trees and sometimes water avoiding all the enemies.
Your score won’t get any higher while you’re doing this and there is no ending to the game,
so it isn’t really that beneficial.
The setting will change from time to time, like beach and snow and there actually is
part where you can get in a boat and take the fight to the seas so to speak.
I’ve rarely reached that section, probably because I’m not very good at Spy Hunter.
Another criticism of the game is that the game is pretty difficult.
But that might be because it’s way more fun to drive really fast and blow stuff up
rather than take it slow and get run off the road eventually anyway.
Spy Hunter was also ported to a bunch of other older systems like Atari and Commodore 64.
And there is also a newer 3D version released in 2001 on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC.
If you want the original, you can find a cartridge or in a few different game collections like
Midway Arcade Treasures.
However you do play it, pretend you’re a secret agent and believe they are actually
hunting you...
Spy.