Spy Hunter

For the 2001/2002 version of Spy Hunter, see Spy Hunter (2001 game)

For the planned 2006 movie of Spy Hunter, see Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run

Spy Hunter is a 1983 arcade game developed and released by Bally Midway. Initially incredibly successful, it remained popular for many years and is still popular with collectors today. The game's novel gameplay and addictive Peter Gunn theme music are largely responsible for its success. It has also been ported to various home computers and video game systems.

Spy Hunter was produced in a sit-down version and as a standard upright. The upright version is much more numerous. The game's controls consist of a steering wheel with several special-purpose buttons, a two-position stick shift ("low" and "high" gears) and a pedal used for acceleration. This game is single player.

Game description

Spy Hunter is an action/driving game. It places the player as the driver of a "spy" vehicle. The object of the game is to travel the freeways and hunt down and destroy as many enemy vehicles as possible, while protecting and not harming innocent civilian vehicles.

The view is aerial, much like a helicopter vantage point. The screen scrolls vertically underneath the player's car. An arrangement of the Peter Gunn theme music plays throughout.

The game begins with the player driving a vehicle, the G-6155 Interceptor (fictitious, but modelled on a 1983 Z28; its name derives from the date of birth of game designer George Gomez). Since the view is top-down, it may be more appropriate to say "controlling" the car via remote control since the view is not from the driver's seat. Soon, the player starts to encounter enemy vehicles which try to force the player's car off the road and crash. Each enemy vehicle has its own special feature, such as tire slashers or bulletproof armor.

Points are scored distance travelled (a counter increments the score while the player is driving) and destroying enemy vehicles. There is a lead-in time where the player has an initial endless supply of cars. After the lead-in time expires, the player must earn extra cars with high scores. The first extra car is earned at a default value of 30,000 points, but this value can vary depending on settings; up to 3 additional cars are awarded at similar increments.

The player must be careful to avoid harming innocent civilian vehicles. There are three types of such vehicles — two automobiles (one pink in color, the other light blue) and a motorcycle. Destroying these vehicles causes the score meter to halt for a few seconds (in effect subtracting points from the player's score) and will result in the weapons van (see below) arriving only once instead of twice in that sequence (it is also possible to inadvertently destroy the weapons van itself; doing so produces the same consequences as destroying a civilian vehicle). A very hard, direct crash with a civilian vehicle can result in the player losing a car.

Initially, the only weapons the player's car has available are two front-mounted machine guns with an endless supply of ammunition. Early on, these guns and the player's driving skill (the player can attempt to force or ram enemy cars off the road) are his only means of defense from the "bad guy" hordes. Eventually, however, the player encounters an ally, the Weapons Van. The player drives past the weapons van — which is bright red in color — parked on the side of the road. The van accelerates past the player's car and and drops a ramp. The player can then drive up the ramp and enter the back of the van. The van then pulls to the side of the road and the spy car is equipped with a new weapon. A symbol atop the weapons van indicates which type of special weapon it carries. The weapons van appears twice in each sequence, or "territory" (forks in the road, where the player must bear either to the right or to the left, marking the boundary between one territory and the next). The player is not compelled to use the weapon supplied by the van; if uninterested, the player can simply ignore the van and drive past it. Sometimes the same type of weapon is offered in both of the weapons van's appearances in a given territory, and at other times the weapon types will be different.

There are three special weapons in all and they can all be equipped simultaneously (though this is rare). The special weapons consist of an oil slick, a smoke screen and missiles. Each special weapon has a limited number of uses, for example, the smoke screen can be used four times. The special weapons are activated via dedicated buttons on the steering wheel. Once weapons are depleted, the car can be refitted with a new supply from the weapons van (the ammunition can be refilled in this manner before it is totally depleted, and entering the weapons van and receiving the same type of weapon twice in the same territory results in the supply of ammunition being doubled). If the car is destroyed, either by being forced off the road or shot, all weapons other than the machine guns are lost when the car returns to the road.

There are four enemy vehicles in all, each dark blue in color and possessing its own special characteristic:

Switchblade (subtitled Never To Be Trusted) with tire slashers (knives pop out of this car's tires and can force the player's car to crash if they touch his tires)
The Road Lord (subtitled Bullet Proof Bully) with bulletproof armor plating (the machine guns are ineffective against these cars)
Limousines called The Enforcer (equipped with Double Barrel Action) featuring a shotgun-toting thug who attempts to shoot the player's car
Helicopters called The Mad Bomber (subtitled Master Of The Sky) which attempts to take out the player with bombs. This enemy can only be destroyed with missiles (these can also unintentionally destroy the other enemies — and conceivably, the player's car itself — if they miss the helicopter, as shots that do miss can fall back onto the roadway).

It is possible for the player to convert his car into a boat by voluntarily driving through a special boathouse located infrequently alongside the road; or at certain intervals the player will be compelled to enter the water, with the words "Bridge Out" appearing on the screen a few seconds before such forced entry. The boat driving sequence is very similar to the normal driving sequence, but provides a break from the regular action. In the water, the three enemies besides the helicopter are replaced by two others: The Barrel Dumper, which travels ahead of the boat and lays depth charges in the water which must be evaded, and Doctor Torpedo, which shoots projectiles at the boat from behind (using the oil slick on either of these characters results in their destruction by burning). At the end of this sequence, the player drives through another boathouse and his vehicle is instantly changed back into a car.

Also, at irregular intervals the words "Icy Road Ahead" will appear on the screen; a few seconds later the scene changes to a "Winter Wonderland," and driving becomes more treacherous; however, some of the weapons — particularly the oil slick — will become more effective in destroying the enemy vehicles.

Myths

Though it was rumored to have a graveyard sequence, an actual ending and a sequence where the player exited the car for on-foot action, in reality the game has no end and at no time does the player ever leave the car.

Trivia

Originally the James Bond theme was planned as the background music for the game and, in fact, that is the music early prototype machines played. The inability to obtain the rights to use the music, however, forced Midway to change the theme on shipping models. In the end, the Peter Gunn theme music was a large part of the game's appeal.
Like the boat driving sequence, a helicopter sequence was also planned. Shortage of memory precluded this feature.
The Nintendo port of this game has extremely buggy collision detection code. If the road turns, the car will not crash if it remains pointed straight. It is possible to drive for hours over dirt, rocks, river banks, etc. If the car's tires are slashed while near the top of the screen, the car will often spin off the top of the screen and reappear at the bottom. The car becomes indestructible and can drive anywhere on the screen without being damaged, but the car's weapons no longer function.
The Commodore 64 port had a related bug. Immediately after starting (being dropped off by the truck), one could continue driving on the side of the road without any enemy cars being able to damage the spy car. One could even drive further out and drive on the black border on the side of the screen.
Was parodied in the Robot Chicken episode, Dragon Nuts.
When starting a file in the 2001/2002 version of Spy Hunter, putting the file name as OGSPY, you are allowed to play the original Spy Hunter.

Legacy

One of the hardest things to find is the pinball version of Spy Hunter, released in 1984 by Bally. Because of Spy Hunter's success, it was followed by a sequel, Spy Hunter II in 1987. It retained the Peter Gunn music and incorporated a cooperative two-player mode, but replaced the top-down view with a more 3D perspective from behind and above the car. Though seemingly more realistic, the different perspective was unpopular. The game achieved little success and remained largely unknown as it never went into large scale production. There is also a Nintendo Entertainment System game called Super Spy Hunter.

Spy Hunter itself is regarded as one of the "Top 100 Videogames" of all time by the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV).

This game inspired an enhanced remake for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, Game Boy Advance and Microsoft Windows. The 2001/2002 version of Spy Hunter was developed by Midway Games.

In late 2003, Universal Studios began making a movie of Spy Hunter, an action movie featuring CGI animation, direction by John Woo and starring The Rock.

Ports

Being so successful and popular, Spy Hunter was ported to several home video game systems and home computers of the early 1980s era. Versions were developed for DOS, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit family, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Apple // and the ColecoVision.

In 2001, Midway resurrected the game, this time using full 3D graphics. Midway published this consumer version for most major systems: Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, and GameCube.

Midway released another version of the game in 2003, specifically for the Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Mac OS X operating systems.

In addition to these consoles, Spy Hunter was included in Midway Arcade Treasures; a compilation of arcade games available for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles, released in 2003.

Excel 2000 Easter egg

A version of Spy Hunter is included as an Easter egg in the first release of Microsoft Excel 2000 ^*. It requires DirectX to work. The procedure to run it is:

Open Excel.
In a blank worksheet, select "Save as" and choose "Save as web page".
Click on Publish and Add interactivity.
Save as any name you like.
Load in the page with MS Internet Explorer, Excel will appear in the web page.
Go to row 2000, column WC.
Highlight all of row 2000 and press Tab to make column WC the active column.
Hold the keys Ctrl, Alt, Shift and click on the Office Icon (It looks like four puzzle pieces put together).
Use the arrow keys to drive your car, the "0" key to drop oil slicks, the space bar to shoot, and the "H" key for headlights.

Shortly after Excel 2000's release, Microsoft officially banned Easter eggs from its software.

External links

A collector's experience with the game (cost, refurbishment)