Zzap
1st October 1991Chase H.Q.
Neaowh! Whoosh! I remember playing this at the arcades and really enjoying it - until the 10ps ran out. The flashing lights, roaring sound and fun gameplay made Chase one of the year's bigger games and its arrival on the C64 was much anticipated. However, while US Gold were polishing up Turbo Out Run, Ocean inexplicably decided to port their monochromatic Speccy code across with a few splashes of colour on the cars.
The gameplay is exceptionally simplistic: race through traffic to sight the villain's car before time runs out, then with a new clock running down, bash the car until its damage reaches 100% and it pulls over to be arrested.
There's three Nitro boosts to be activated, and innocent cars can be destroyed by bashing into them - there is no real penalty for this, other than losing speed.
Unlike C64, SCI there are road junctions. However, this is a minor plus point set beside awful graphics, sluggish controls and grating sound. Absolute Chase fanatics could get some mileage out of it, but really this is a very poor game. Which is particularly unfortunate since the coin-op's bash-'em-up gameplay remains unique. Zooming up beside cars than knocking seven bells out of them is classic Hollywood cop chase action - simply leaning out the window and blasting away with a pistol doesn't compare for sheer aggressive fun.
In Issue 58 Chase H.Q. traded on its coin-op name, perhaps, to squeeze a 53% mark, although Robin thought it "is much too easy to beat". Phil agreed: despite being fairly playable, awful presentation and lack of challenge made it ultimately unsatisfying. Almost two years on the game has become even more unimpressive in the light of Turbo Charge particularly, and the newish price of £4 is overly expensive for mere curiosity.