Chase H.Q.
Chase H.Q. is a racing game that was first released by the Japanese company Taito in 1988 as an arcade machine. Due to the great success numerous ports to other computer systems as well as several successor emerged. A characteristic feature of the game is that it, unlike many games of the genre not have a car race to the content, but chases.
Game content
The player assumes the role of an undercover agent, which is to pursue its civil strife on public roads, the vehicles of volatile criminals and ask. Here, the gameplay is divided into two phases: First, the player must try to catch up with his vehicle to vehicle crime. Once this is done, the player must bring the getaway car to a stop by he damaged by repeatedly ramming through to driving impairment. If this is done, the game section shall be considered terminated.
Similar to other arcade racing games, there is a time limit for the game. First, the players have 60 seconds to to catch up with the target vehicle. Once this is done, the counter is re- set to 60 seconds, which now remain with the player to damage the criminals vehicle. If the time expires, the game is lost, but can be continued by new coin at the same place.
The routes taken are characterized respectively by the fact that bifurcations exist in some places. Selects the players here the correct turn, so he can catch up much faster to the enemy vehicle with an abbreviation. In addition, the streets of many other road users are populated, in which collisions with the player's car mean a loss of speed sensitive.
For the distance traveled and the remaining at the completion of each level the player time points that are entered after the match in a high score table receives.
Control
The player controls the vehicle from the vending machine on the steering wheel and pedals, although there were vending machines in several forms: Among other things, there was a form in which the player standing in front of the machine, and a larger machine in which the player is stylized in a vehicle could put cockpit.
As a further control element, there is a shift lever that allows the player to switch between two speed steps could choose: The low gear meant doing good acceleration, but a top speed of only 205 km / h In high gear, however, a speed of about 320 km / h could be achieved, but the acceleration from a standstill was much worse.
The final element of control there is a "Nitro Boost ". Here, the vehicle is briefly accelerated to speeds of over 400 km / h, however, only three such bonuses for each level.
Rolling stock
The player-controlled vehicle is a charcoal-gray Porsche 928 The respective opponents vehicles in the various levels are the following:
- Level 1: White Lotus Esprit
- Level 2: Yellow Lamborghini Countach
- Level 3: Grey Porsche 930
- Level 4: Blue Ferrari 288 GTO
- Level 5: Red Porsche 928
Also, the road continued mainly of different colored vehicles of these types; the only other type of vehicle was a Toyota Hilux.
Reactions and successor
Chase H.Q. ported in 1989 by Ocean Software on multiple home computers, on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. This particular came the Spectrum version of great notoriety.
Ports to game consoles were released by Taito itself. First published in 1989 a version for the Nintendo Entertainment System (1989 ), 1991 were added to those for Game Boy, Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear. 1992 published versions for 16- bit consoles PC-Engine and Sega Mega Drive, the latter was under the titles Super Chase HQ (Japan, Europe) and Chase H.Q. II ( USA) published. The PC Engine version was offered in 2008 for the Wii Virtual Console.
As a direct successor applies in 1989 published Special Criminal Investigation. The basic gameplay has been retained, but firearms were introduced as an additional game element with which the escape vehicles could be damaged from a distance. The player's car in this game was now a Nissan 300ZX Z32 with a targa roof.
The second sequel was released in 1992 and was titled Super Chase: Criminal Termination. Unlike its predecessors, here the action from the driver's perspective was shown. In addition, the player is not standing against a single opponent vehicles, but against multiple vehicles per level and even against helicopters. A very similar version of this game in the same year for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System under the title Super Chase HQ published.
Published in 2007 Taito one game titled Chase HQ 2, however, appeared exclusively in Japan, and only as an automatic version. As an indirect successor to the series is also the 1997 Sony PlayStation game released Ray tracer, which, however, emphasized the competitive nature more. In addition, in 1999 the game Chase H.Q. Secret Police for the Game Boy Color released, which extended the chase to a planning part, in which the player had to coordinate the pursuit of the fleeing vehicle with more police patrols on a street plan.
In the 2000s, published a Chinese Studio programming a PC game called Chase HQ 2 Evolution. This game has nothing to do with the game series by Taito, instead this was a rally game, which is obviously came from a bootleg version of the 1998's Sega Rally Championship 2.