Highway pursuit
Encyclopedia
Highway Pursuit is a computer game remake of Spy Hunter
created by Adam Dawes in association with Retrospec
, initially released in 2003.
Highway Pursuit puts players in control of a powerful sports car
, in a world filled with enemy agents, seeking to take control of the road. Their mission is to destroy as many of these enemy agents as possible, without putting any civilian
life at risk. Along the way, players will encounter varied terrain and weather conditions, a number of different enemy vehicles intent on their destruction, and also a few helpful pointers from their colleague, Ashley, back at HQ.
, which is their main weapon for use against enemy cars. It has unlimited ammunition, but they should be careful not to hit any civilian vehicles when firing. Their car is also capable of being upgraded with a number of add-on weapons (see below). Additional weapons that are fitted will be displayed as a glowing icon
at the bottom left of their screen.
In the bottom right of the screen is a speedometer
that displays how fast the car is currently moving. Immediately above this is a health display (a red heart icon). As the car sustains damage, its health will slowly deplete. When it runs out, the car explodes and the player loses a life. Health recharges very slowly over time as they drive along. A small health boost is also given for docking with any weapons van, and a larger boost for docking with the yellow and black repair van. These are not very common, but not as rare as the life van.
Players should drive with care to avoid damaging their car. They should stay on the road at all times; straying onto the grass will cause severe damage to their (or any other) vehicle. This can be a useful way of dispatching enemy cars; however, ramming them off the edge of the road can cause extreme damage to their car if they are not careful.
Crasher : Crasher is the first type of car you will encounter. These cars are relatively harmless (only dangerous in mass numbers) and attack you by ramming you from the side or from behind. They will try to push you off the side of the road. They are a purple in colour.
Blade : Blade is a much nastier enemy. These cars have retractable knives fitted to their wheels. If you are rammed from the side by a Blade vehicle when the knives are fully extended, your tires will burst causing you to spin off the road, out of control. Players should be very careful of these orange cars.
Jeep : The Jeep is bulletproof, and no amount of attack from players' machine guns will get this car out of their way. The only way to destroy these green cars is to push them off the side of the road, or to use oil or smoke in front of them so that they drive off the side of the road.
Chopper : The Chopper will hover above players and is able to follow them wherever they go. Chopper can make quite a nuisance of itself. It will drop bombs in front of players that create huge craters in the road, causing massive damage to any car that should drive over them. The Chopper can only be destroyed using surface-to-air missile
s—available from a weapons van—although it will fly away on its own when it runs out of bombs to drop.
.
Smoke van : The Smoke van fits a smoke screen to a player's car. When deployed, the smoke screen forms a wide blanket of dense smoke across the road. The smoke does not cause any damage to vehicles that are caught in it, but causes them to drive blindly to the side to get out of the smoke. It can therefore be used to edge cars off the road.
Oil van : The Oil van fits an oil
canister to the back of a player's car. When deployed, the oil pours out onto the road behind players, causing any cars that drive over it to skid uncontrollably until they crash. This can be very powerful, and also allows players to destroy the armored Jeep. Players should be careful not to let civilians get caught in the mess.
Missile van : The Missile van adds a small number of surface-to-air missiles to a player's car. These can be used to try and destroy the Helicopter. Players should try to fire their missile when the helicopter is almost directly above them, in order to minimise the chances of the missile missing its target.
Repair van : The Repair van repairs some of the damage players' cars have sustained while driving. All of the weapon vans provide a small boost, but the repair van does the best job of getting the player's car back into shape. These vans are yellow.
Life van : The Life vans are the rarest type of vans in the game. They are identical to the van that starts players off every time they die or start a new game.
When players destroy a civilian car, all scoring is suspended for five seconds. During this period, "...no score..." is displayed at the top of the screen instead of the player's game score.
Players will be given an extra life at 100,000 and 200,000 points.
After this the sequence repeats. The game continues infinitely, there is no "end" to the game except when the player runs out of lives.
While the main game dynamic is based on the arcade game
Spy Hunter, the design attempts to include new feature not included within the original game in order to add some originality. The main feature is the addition of voice communication from the player's base of operations, provided by a game character named Ashley. The inspiration for this was provided by another classic racing game, Chase HQ.
The author has stated that there are no current plans for a sequel.
More notable appearances include:
Spy Hunter
Spy Hunter is a 1983 arcade game developed and released by Bally Midway. It has also been ported to various home computers and video game systems....
created by Adam Dawes in association with Retrospec
Retrospec
Retrospec is an internet based collective of coders, graphics artists and computer musicians. They specialise in taking popular games from the eighties and rewriting them using the extra power that is available in more modern computers, whilst attempting to stay true to the feel and gameplay of the...
, initially released in 2003.
Highway Pursuit puts players in control of a powerful sports car
Sports car
A sports car is a small, usually two seat, two door automobile designed for high speed driving and maneuverability....
, in a world filled with enemy agents, seeking to take control of the road. Their mission is to destroy as many of these enemy agents as possible, without putting any civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
life at risk. Along the way, players will encounter varied terrain and weather conditions, a number of different enemy vehicles intent on their destruction, and also a few helpful pointers from their colleague, Ashley, back at HQ.
The player's car
The player's car is equipped with a front-mounted machine gunMachine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
, which is their main weapon for use against enemy cars. It has unlimited ammunition, but they should be careful not to hit any civilian vehicles when firing. Their car is also capable of being upgraded with a number of add-on weapons (see below). Additional weapons that are fitted will be displayed as a glowing icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
at the bottom left of their screen.
In the bottom right of the screen is a speedometer
Speedometer
A speedometer is a gauge that measures and displays the instantaneous speed of a land vehicle. Now universally fitted to motor vehicles, they started to be available as options in the 1900s, and as standard equipment from about 1910 onwards. Speedometers for other vehicles have specific names...
that displays how fast the car is currently moving. Immediately above this is a health display (a red heart icon). As the car sustains damage, its health will slowly deplete. When it runs out, the car explodes and the player loses a life. Health recharges very slowly over time as they drive along. A small health boost is also given for docking with any weapons van, and a larger boost for docking with the yellow and black repair van. These are not very common, but not as rare as the life van.
Players should drive with care to avoid damaging their car. They should stay on the road at all times; straying onto the grass will cause severe damage to their (or any other) vehicle. This can be a useful way of dispatching enemy cars; however, ramming them off the edge of the road can cause extreme damage to their car if they are not careful.
Enemies
Players should beware of several types of enemy vehicles that will try to destroy them:Crasher : Crasher is the first type of car you will encounter. These cars are relatively harmless (only dangerous in mass numbers) and attack you by ramming you from the side or from behind. They will try to push you off the side of the road. They are a purple in colour.
Blade : Blade is a much nastier enemy. These cars have retractable knives fitted to their wheels. If you are rammed from the side by a Blade vehicle when the knives are fully extended, your tires will burst causing you to spin off the road, out of control. Players should be very careful of these orange cars.
Jeep : The Jeep is bulletproof, and no amount of attack from players' machine guns will get this car out of their way. The only way to destroy these green cars is to push them off the side of the road, or to use oil or smoke in front of them so that they drive off the side of the road.
Chopper : The Chopper will hover above players and is able to follow them wherever they go. Chopper can make quite a nuisance of itself. It will drop bombs in front of players that create huge craters in the road, causing massive damage to any car that should drive over them. The Chopper can only be destroyed using surface-to-air missile
Surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...
s—available from a weapons van—although it will fly away on its own when it runs out of bombs to drop.
Weapon vans
The Weapons vans are friendly vehicles. Different types of vans give players different types of assistance. Vans will either repair a player's vehicle or give them some type of weaponWeapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...
.
Smoke van : The Smoke van fits a smoke screen to a player's car. When deployed, the smoke screen forms a wide blanket of dense smoke across the road. The smoke does not cause any damage to vehicles that are caught in it, but causes them to drive blindly to the side to get out of the smoke. It can therefore be used to edge cars off the road.
Oil van : The Oil van fits an oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
canister to the back of a player's car. When deployed, the oil pours out onto the road behind players, causing any cars that drive over it to skid uncontrollably until they crash. This can be very powerful, and also allows players to destroy the armored Jeep. Players should be careful not to let civilians get caught in the mess.
Missile van : The Missile van adds a small number of surface-to-air missiles to a player's car. These can be used to try and destroy the Helicopter. Players should try to fire their missile when the helicopter is almost directly above them, in order to minimise the chances of the missile missing its target.
Repair van : The Repair van repairs some of the damage players' cars have sustained while driving. All of the weapon vans provide a small boost, but the repair van does the best job of getting the player's car back into shape. These vans are yellow.
Life van : The Life vans are the rarest type of vans in the game. They are identical to the van that starts players off every time they die or start a new game.
Scoring
Players are awarded points for the following:- Distance driven
- Destroying an enemy Crasher car: 500 points
- Destroying an enemy Blade car: 1,000 points
- Destroying an enemy Jeep car: 1,500 points
- Destroying a Helicopter: 5,000 points
- Docking with a Weapons van: 500 points
When players destroy a civilian car, all scoring is suspended for five seconds. During this period, "...no score..." is displayed at the top of the screen instead of the player's game score.
Players will be given an extra life at 100,000 and 200,000 points.
Levels
The game has a series of levels that can be reached as the game progresses. The levels are as follows:- ForestForestA forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
- DesertDesertA desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
- Forest
- FogFogFog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...
- Forest
- CityCityA city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
- Forest
- IceIceIce is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...
After this the sequence repeats. The game continues infinitely, there is no "end" to the game except when the player runs out of lives.
Development history and future
The initial version of the game was developed over an 18-month period from mid-2002 until its release date on the 12 November 2003. A subsequent version, v1.1, was released on the 6 January 2005 with a variety of small improvements to the controls and flow of the game.While the main game dynamic is based on the arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
Spy Hunter, the design attempts to include new feature not included within the original game in order to add some originality. The main feature is the addition of voice communication from the player's base of operations, provided by a game character named Ashley. The inspiration for this was provided by another classic racing game, Chase HQ.
The author has stated that there are no current plans for a sequel.
Cheats
The original game did not contain any cheat modes, although a number of players found ways to hack into the game and adjust its score and life counters. Strangely, a German web site, spieletipps.de, published a number of cheat codes for the game, none of which actually existed. After receiving numerous puzzled emails, the author decided to include the cheats into the second release of the game, adding several more at the same time.Media coverage
Highway Pursuit has appeared on the cover discs of a variety of computer magazines.More notable appearances include:
- a mention on the April 2004 British edition of PC GamerPC GamerPC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
magazineMagazineMagazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
(in which it was described as "A SpyHunter remake. It's better than the terrible update that the game received on the consoles. A simple left-right car-skidder makes for a playable and difficult game."). - a review on the Sky OneSky OneSky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
TV programme GamezvilleGamezvilleGamezville was a computer games show broadcast on Sky One that ran for two series during the years 2003-2004. It was presented by models - Darren Malcolm and Jamie Atiko...
on Sunday 22 August 2004. - featured as cool site of the day on Kim KomandoKim KomandoKim Komando is the host of an American talk radio program based on the popularity of personal computers, the use of the Internet, and the complexities of consumer electronics. The Kim Komando Show is broadcast and syndicated on over 450 radio stations in the U.S. and two stations in Ontario, Canada...
's web site on 27 June 2007.