Spy Hunter

Originating in the arcades, Spy Hunter is a driving action game played from an overhead point of view. Your car is equipped with machine guns to help you get past the numerous enemies out on the road (be careful not to shoot any civilians, though!) Occasionally you will come across a weapons van, and if you drive into the back of the van your car becomes equipped with a second weapon (such as smoke screen, oil slick, or missiles). At several points the road splits and you can enter a boathouse which transforms your car into a boat temporarily.

Released: 1983
Platforms: Amstrad CPC Apple II Apple IIGS Arcade Atari 2600 Atari 8-bit BBC Micro BBC Microcomputer System ColecoVision Commodore 64 Commodore C64/128/MAX Game Boy Advance Game Boy Color GameCube MS-DOS NES PlayStation 2 Windows ZX Spectrum macOS
Genres: Arcade Racing Shooter Vehicular combat
Developers: Midway Games
Publishers: Midway Games
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action
Country: United States
Languages: English
Time to beat: 1hwith extras
Composers: Naoki Kodaka

About

Spy Hunter is a 1983 vehicular combat video game developed and published by Bally Midway for arcades. The game draws inspiration from the James Bond films and was originally supposed to carry the James Bond brand. The object of the game is to drive down roads in the technologically advanced "Interceptor" car and destroy various enemy vehicles with a variety of onboard weapons. The game was produced in both sit-down and standard upright versions, with the latter being more common. The controls consist of a steering wheel in the form of a futuristic aircraft-style yoke with several special-purpose buttons, a two-position stick shift (offering "low" and "high" gears), and a pedal used for acceleration.

Spy Hunter was a commercial success in American arcades, where it was one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984 and 1985. It was ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit computers, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Apple II, ColecoVision, MS-DOS, Nintendo Entertainment System, and BBC Micro. Spy Hunter was followed by Spy Hunter II, which added a 3D view and two-player split-screen play, a pinball tie-in, and a successor series of games bearing the Spy Hunter name. In addition, the NES received a sequel titled Super Spy Hunter.

Keywords

helicopter
vehicular combat
spy
espionage
8-bit
vehicle combat
sports cars

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Spy Hunter is a vertical scrolling driving game with the player in the role of a spy driving an armed sportscar. The object of the game is to travel the freeway destroying as many enemy vehicles as possible while protecting civilian vehicles. The game uses a top-down perspective. Controls consist of a two-position gearshift lever, a floor-mounted accelerator pedal, and a steering yoke with five buttons, and the cabinet also includes a dashboard with status lights.

The game begins with the player driving the fictitious G-6155 Interceptor, using the yoke, pedal, and gearshift to steer and control speed. The car is equipped with a machine gun that has unlimited ammunition and can be fired by pressing and holding the corresponding button on the yoke.

Development

Game designer George Gomez drew inspiration for the game from listening to an audio cassette tape of music from James Bond films. He designed the game with Tom Leon, with whom he had worked on Tron. Gomez sketched out the in-game road map on a long scroll of drawing paper and also came up with the idea of the weapons van. Originally the game was to be based directly on James Bond and have the "James Bond Theme" as in-game music, but the license could not be acquired. Instead, an electronic arrangement of Henry Mancini's theme to Peter Gunn plays throughout.

Reception

In the United States, Spy Hunter topped the RePlay upright arcade cabinet from April to November 1984. It also topped the Play Meter dedicated cabinet charts for street locations in July and November 1984. The game was listed by AMOA as one of the US's top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984, with AMOA later giving it the award for "most played" arcade video game of 1985 in the United States. In 1995, Flux magazine ranked the arcade version 29th on their list of the "Top 100 Video Games". They praised the game music, controls and gameplay.

Computer and Video Games scored the ColecoVision version 80% in 1989.

Legacy

A pinball machine based on Spy Hunter was released in 1984 by Bally.

The arcade game was ported to the ColecoVision in January 1985.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

Platform	Released	Regions
Arcade	1 November 1983	North America
Apple II	31 December 1983	North America
Atari 2600	31 December 1984	North America
Atari 8-bit	31 December 1984	North America
Commodore C64/128/MAX	31 December 1984	North America
MS-DOS	31 December 1984	North America
ColecoVision	31 December 1985	North America
ZX Spectrum	31 December 1985	Europe
Amstrad CPC	31 December 1986	Europe
BBC Microcomputer System	31 December 1986	Europe