| Manufacturer: | Taito |
| Genre: | Racing |
| Board: | Taito Z System |
| Year: | 1988 |
There were lots of behind-the-car racing games during the 80s, such as Pole Position, Power Drift, Continental Circus, TX-1, Cisco Heat and of course Outrun, but if truth be told, there was not much difference between them. Taito mixed things up considerably in 1988 with Chase HQ, which gave players an objective beyond simply crossing the finish line first. Instead, you played a highway patrol officer, who gets to pursue criminals as they drive their luxurious getaway cars. In true Miami Vice-style, you get a pretty hot car yourself, that 80s icon, the Porsche 928. At the start of every level the perp is already well ahead of you, so you have to dash through traffic to catch up with them. To break up the action, you also have to make sure you take the right junctions to stay on the criminal's tail. Make a wrong turn and you lose them. Once you do catch up to the target, you have to ram them off the road, in a sort of driving boss battle. What actually makes this game special and more than just an over-the-shoulder version of Spy Hunter is its lack of weaponry; the action is somehow more visceral. Curiously, it's a formula that was not copied very often. Taito themselves released a couple of follow ups in the arcade, Special Criminal Investigations (1989) which added more targets and guns and Super Chase: Criminal Termination (1992), which switched to a behind-the-wheel view of the action. It wasn't until 2006 that Taito released a true sequel, Chase HQ 2, which reverted to the old formula and (rather anachronistically for a modern game) full-motion video. Sadly, the sequel was never ported to a home platform, so the chances of seeing it are rare. The closest thing on current hardware is probably Criterion Games' Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit for PC and consoles.
MTW
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