Chase HQ

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Chase HQ
Studio Taito
Publisher Taito
Senior Developer Hiroguki Sakou
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1988
genre Racing game
Game mode 1 player
control Steering wheel ; 2-gear shift (low / high); 2 pedals (gas and brake); Nitro switch
casing Standard and "Sit-Down"
Arcade system Main CPU : (2 ×) 68000 (@ 12 MHz)
Sound CPU: Z80 (@ 4 MHz)
Sound chips: YM2610 (@ 8 MHz)
monitor Raster resolution 320 × 240 (horizontal) palette of 4096 colors

Chase HQ is a racing game first released as an arcade machine by the Japanese company Taito in 1988 . Due to the great success, numerous ports for other computer systems and several successors were created. A characteristic of the game is that, unlike numerous games of the genre, it does not have a car race as its content, but chases .

Game content

The player takes on the role of an undercover investigator who is supposed to pursue and locate the vehicles of fugitive criminals on public roads with his civil patrol . The course of the game is divided into two phases: First, the player must try to catch up with the criminal vehicle with his vehicle. If this is done, the player must bring the escape vehicle to a stop by repeatedly ramming it until it is unable to drive. If this is done, the game section is considered over.

Similar to other arcade racing games, there is a time limit on the game. First, the player has 60 seconds to catch up with the target vehicle. Once this is done, the counter is reset to 60 seconds, which the player now has to damage the criminal vehicle. The clock is ticking, the game is considered lost , however, by new coin at the same point continues to be.

The routes driven are each characterized by the fact that there are forks in some places. If the player chooses the right turn-off, he can take a shortcut to catch up with the enemy vehicle much faster. In addition, the streets are populated by numerous other road users, where collisions with the player's vehicle mean a significant loss of speed.

For the distance traveled and the time remaining at the end of the level, the player receives points, which are entered in a highscore table after the end of the game .

control

The player controls the vehicle on the machine using the steering wheel and pedals , whereby the machine was available in several designs: Among other things, there was a form in which the player stood in front of the machine, and a larger machine in which the player entered a stylized vehicle -Cockpit could put.

Another control element was a gearshift lever with which the player could choose between two speed levels: The low gear meant good acceleration, but a top speed of only 205 km / h. In high gear, on the other hand, a speed of around 320 km / h could be achieved, but the acceleration from standstill was much worse.

The last element of the control system is a “nitro boost”. The vehicle is briefly accelerated to speeds of over 400 km / h, but only three such bonuses are available per level.

vehicles

The vehicle controlled by the player is an anthracite-colored Porsche 928 . The respective enemy vehicles in the individual levels are as follows:

Road traffic also consisted predominantly of differently colored vehicles of these types; the only other type of vehicle was a Toyota Hilux .

Realizations and successors

Chase HQ was ported by Ocean Software to several home computers in 1989 , namely to ZX Spectrum , Amstrad CPC , Commodore 64 , Commodore Amiga and Atari ST . The Spectrum version in particular became very popular.

Ports to game consoles were published by Taito himself. First a version for Nintendo Entertainment System was released in 1989 (1989), followed in 1991 for Game Boy , Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear . In 1992 versions for the 16-bit console PC-Engine and Sega Mega Drive appeared , the latter was published under the titles Super Chase HQ (Japan, Europe) and Chase HQ II (USA). The PC engine version was offered in 2008 for the virtual console of the Wii .

The direct successor is the Special Criminal Investigation published in 1989 . The basic gameplay was retained, but firearms were introduced as an additional game element , with which the escape vehicles could be damaged from a distance. The player's vehicle 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 . In contrast to its predecessors, the events were shown here from the driver's perspective. In addition, the player no longer competes against individual enemy vehicles, but against several vehicles per level and even against helicopters . A version very similar to this game was released in the same year for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System under the title Super Chase HQ .

In 2007 Taito released a game called Chase HQ 2 , but it was only released in Japan and only as a slot machine version. The game Ray Tracers , which appeared in 1997 for Sony's PlayStation , is considered an indirect successor to the series, but it emphasized the racing character more. In addition, the game Chase HQ Secret Police was published for the Game Boy Color in 1999, which expanded the chases to include a planning part in which the player had to coordinate the pursuit of the escape vehicle with several police patrols on a street map.

In the 2000s, a Chinese programming studio released a PC game called Chase HQ 2 Evolution . However, this game has nothing to do with Taito's series of games, instead this was a rally game, which was obviously a bootleg version of the 1998 Sega Rally Championship 2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Internet Game Car Database: Entry on Chase HQ , accessed June 22, 2013
  2. ↑ Internet Game Car Database: Entry on Chase HQ 2 Evolution , accessed June 22, 2013

Web links