
Spy hunter is a vertically scrolling driving game that was released by Bally Midway in 1983. It's controls were similar to that of 1982's driving icon Pole Position with a steering wheel, gas pedal, and a low/high gear shifter. The steering wheel was not your tradition style but more like airplane controls with two thumb firing buttons and two triggers on each handle. These buttons controlled the special weapons for your high advanced spy vehicle, including machine guns, smoke screen, oil slick, and missiles. You gained these weapons by driving into the back of a tractor trailer ala Knight Rider. Once the weapons van had you ready to unleash hell on the streets, it was your job o maneuver the "G-6155 Interceptor" to disable enemy vehicles. And if that wasn't enough, your journey was serenaded by Henry Mancini's famous Peter Gunn theme.
From 2003-2005, anticipation arose for production of a Spy Hunter film, to be released with a new video game called Spy Hunter: Nowhere To Run. Dwayne 'The Rock" Johnson was cast as the lead in both. The film never began main production due to script rewrites and time constraints by directors. Eventually Johnson left the project as well. The video game was released in 2006 featuring the first time that the agent and car could be controlled during gameplay. Even though the franchise was perhaps not as successful as others, Spy Hunter is still revered as one of the top 100 arcade games by the Killer List of Video Games. I leave you with perhaps one of my favorite TV commercials of all time. In 2008, Pontiac used Spy Hunter as the premise for it's new G8 sports car ad. I thought it was a great salute to the legacy of the franchise and its potential that was really never fully reached.
Thanks as always to Arcade-museum.com
LOVED Spy Hunter, man!! :D
ReplyDeleteI can hear Peter Gunn now!
Oh wait... that might just be the embed. LOL