I've been in the mood for various bits of non-RPG nonsense between Atelier sessions of late, and one that I've been meaning to give a go for quite some time is Spy Hunter on the PlayStation 2. I fired it up for the first time last night and man that game is super-fun.
Most of you reading this are likely familiar, but on the offchance you aren't, Spy Hunter began as an early '80s arcade game that unfolded from a top-down perspective and saw you driving a tricked-out, heavily secret agent car along endless roads while listening to the theme from Peter Gunn in an attempt to take down enemy vehicles and score lots of points. It was monstrously difficult, impressively speedy and a lot of fun — and had some decent ports over the years, too. I have particularly fond memories of the Atari 8-bit version, for reasons that are likely obvious.
2001's Spy Hunter for PS2, however, is both a sequel and reboot. It transplants the top-down gameplay to a third-person 3D perspective, and challenges you to race through a series of missions, each of which feature various objectives to accomplish besides simply making it to the end. These vary from destroying specific targets to sticking GPS tags on things and collecting "Satcom" items; most objectives besides a mission's primary objective are completely optional, but subsequent missions are only unlocked if you've completed sufficient objectives in total.
The game handles really nicely. It's got a super-fun arcadey driving model, and the weapons controls are integrated simply but effectively. There's a touch of auto-aim and lock-on to keep things straightforward when hitting targets, and important objectives are highlighted with big flashing Sega arcade-game style reticles just to make sure you don't miss them. The only thing I do find a little tricky is the placement of some of the Satcom items; they often require the use of a jump ramp, and said jump ramps are often a little fiddly to hit at the right angle and speed. That's why they're optional objectives though, I guess, and after you've learned a stage by running through it a few times, hitting all these ramps as well as your other objectives will doubtless become second nature.
There are two other PS2 Spy Hunter games after this first one — the third of which stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, since there was originally intended to be a tie-in movie — and apparently another complete reboot on Vita and 3DS from 2012. I have all the PS2 ones… judging by a little bit of time with this first one, I'm going to enjoy exploring them!
And yes, the Peter Gunn theme is present and correct.
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