Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
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.