Chase HQ 1988 (Taito) - Arcade

[Matt Taylor]

CHASE HQ
Developer: TAITO
Year of Release: 1988
Distributer: TAITO
Format: ARCADE

In the late eighties, Taito's high speed homage to the linen suit and aviator shade wearing TV cops of the decade, screeched into arcades hot on the heels of Sega's 'Outrun'. Ditching the flashy, hedonistic and for legal reasons at the time, purely coincidental likeness of Ferrari's Testerossa, for the flashy, hedonistic and for legal reasons at the time, purely coincidental likeness to Porsche's 928. The high maintenance girlfriend was also out of the proverbial window for an altogether more chatty and often terrified partner, and for the first time ever you found yourself in a racer that actually encouraged you to crash into other vehicles. All in the name of justice, high hair lacquering, pristine mustache keeping, Hawaiian shirt wearing justice.

Taito had truly invented something new, a racer with a story, with a sense of character. Arcade racers prior to 'Chase HQ' had been a repetitious affair, tasking you with how to get from A to B, never tasking you with 'why'? If you frequented arcades during the late eighties, the scratchy sounds of your intercom bursting to life, the dulcet tones of Nancy's report from chase headquarters and the exhilirating scream of "Let's Go Mr. Driver" were enough to put you in the driver's seat with a mission, a purpose, a reason to make that last shiny 50p piece count.

The game's basic premise is simple, in each of the five levels, race to the outskirts of the city, intercept the fleeing criminal and ram him or her off the road before they reach the state line and the end of your jurisdiction. This challenge is set to an ever diminishing time limit, firstly being given 60 seconds (and the option of a short cut) to find the fleeing felons, and a further 60 seconds once found to bring their car to a halt. Once in pursuit an energy bar representing the escapee's car's stamina appears. The tension in the game's mechanic comes from trying to find the best racing line, while avoiding civilian traffic to reach the criminals in time. Once found, its a high speed chase to the death, employing the souped up Porsche's nitro boosts, to bring the high speed felons to justice.

For those who have never endulged in Taito's chase 'em up make no mistake. Chase HQ is fast. While Taito's '80s cop show' setting may have aged as gracefully as the shows it was based on, the beautiful sprite scaling that gives this game its sense of blurring speed seems as fresh today as it ever did. Easily rivalling the much revered 'Outrun' for both technical wizardy and pure unadultered speed and able to pull off complicated techniques for the time adding a sense of perspective to the courses with hill designs and a split track system which further deepened the game play experience. The sounds were great too, employing all the revs, screeches and sirens expected of an 80s cop show chase, set to music as hummable as any 'Magical Sound Shower' and giving us so many quotable and now iconic phrases from the video game dialogue canon. "Giddy up, boy!". I defy anyone to not be reaching for that next 50p as those two mockingly echoing notes repeat themselves as the timer ticks down on the continue screen.

In short 'Chase HQ' is a masterpiece of arcade racing which has stood the test of time very well, not just technically, nor for its sheer fun factor, but weirdly that it is a very successful and original IP that few have tried to imitate over the years. Making 'Chase HQ' still quite a unique experience. Those looking for next generation updates will be hard pushed to find much that attempts to rival or expand on the original, but you could give Taito's own 1997 PSOne title 'Ray Tracers' a go, a 3D update of the original in all but name, or Big Big Studio's 'Pursuit Force' games on the PSP which enhance the formula with Hollywood style action, leaping from car to car in shoot outs, before commandeering vehicles.

How can you play 'Chase HQ' at home? An original cockpit cabinet recently reared its head on ebay for the poultry some of 800 pounds. There was also an emulated port brought to the Sega Saturn in Japan, along with its arcade sequel S.C.I. (Special Criminal Investigations) on the same disc, but again playing this way comes with the high costs of an import set up. Other than these options most home versions didn't really live up to the arcade original. Gamer's looking to experience the thrills of the Taito's sun drenched screech 'em up these days would do best to stick with emulation, the rom running perfectly well on Mame.

Matt Taylor

[msimplay]

This was always one of my favourite Arcade games back in the day.
However the only version available in the home to me was the Master System version which was kinda crappy all round but somehow I still managed to like it because of my love for Chase HQ