DESCRIPTION

Spy Hunter places the player in control of a souped-up white sports car, armed with machine guns and other tricks. The game is viewed from a top-down perspective, far above the vehicle. The highway scrolls from top to bottom as the sports car speeds ahead and players must stay on the road, avoid obstacles and hazards, and ram or blast away at pesky enemy vehicles before they cause too much trouble. One of the first games to use the vertically-scrolling shooter set-up in a familiar, earthbound environment, Spy Hunter succeeds by its production values as well as its play mechanics.

The straightforward shooter premise is overlaid with sights and sounds designed to drive home the game's "James Bond" personality. As in the Knight Rider television series popular at the time of the game's release, the player's high-tech sports car emerges from a inconspicuous "weapons van" and power-ups can be gained by successfully re-entering the van later, as it speeds by on the road. As important as any other aspect of presentation is the game's background music: a thick, throaty-bass MIDI arrangement of the "Peter Gunn Theme" helps to put all but the most unimaginative arcade gamers in the proper mindset of an international super-spy. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide