BIG HAPPY SMILE
Halcyon days, and a great way to fill the time 'till Outrun hit the arcades.
Selecting 'Magical Sound Shower'...
Take my money! Spy Hunter at the arcade was definitely school of hard knocks, just trying to stay alive meant keeping my foot on the brake as the Peter Gunn soundtrack, with it’s chugging beeps, ricocheted around my head. Spyhunter 1983 by Bally Midway Arcade moneyspinner turned console favourite Ported to my NES, the …
River Raid predated Spy Hunter, and both were preceded by Exidy's Death Race - though that wasn't strictly the same game.
The best Spy Hunter clone I encountered was a C64 game called Burnin' Rubber (not to be confused with the 1990 OutRun clone of the same name). It basically took the same style of game but swapped the theme for Death Race 2000.
and got good enough to drive on the ice. Yes it was more slick and you pretty much couldn't take even one bump from the armor plated car. But by that time I was usually well stocked with weapons and the slick ice affected them just as much as it affected me. Oil was always my fave, although I liked to have a few missiles for the pesky chopper. The boats were your escape hatch. If you ran low on oil you ran to the boats: no more switchblade to deal with, and now the oil was flames, which were guaranteed to wipe out the other boats. I never really cared for the smoke, although I would use if I got jammed up badly on the road.
Once upon a time I knew the route to get the Oil Slick virtually every time from the Weapons Truck.
Ah, many a wasted, err, enjoyed 10p...!
And, of course, unlike games today, it *was* a) 1 game for 10p and b) there was no "keep shovelling in the money until you complete it" option. You *had* to be good!
.... was spent between three of us trying to get the high score on the Spy Hunter machine, where you got to enter your three letters if you got into the top 20 I think it was. Me (KAS), my mate PNC and the mysterious RAJ (who neither I nor PNC ever met) were the sole occupants of the leader board, and spent the best part of two years trading the number 1 spot.
The fact that we never once saw RAJ - who clearly spent as much time on it as we did - kinda added to the otherwise tenuous "spy" aspect.
A top-20 game lasted well over an hour, and you were absolutely knackered by the end of it. Other guys would come up and ask "how many fking games of that are you playing?" to be met with the reply "just the one mate, hopefully be a while yet though".
As for the snow and ice, yes it was difficult. It was always a relief to get through the other end of that part.
Good times, and I definitely got my money's worth out of that machine.
(and to PNC and RAJ, if by some fluke you happen to read El Reg, cheers! The constant battle for number 1, the frustration when you just fell short, the satisfaction from getting the top score, the picture I had in my mind of RAJ in particular seeing a new high score on the screen - that's what made it such fun)
Black Helicopter because, well, it just seems appropriate for Spy Hunter.
I can't believe nobody has posted about this yet, watch this:
http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/trouble-in-omaha.html
:)