Gaming Target - Game Boy: SpyHunter

Written by Matt Swider on June 07, 2002

Review: The SpyHunter series is now 18 years old and the car still seems totally illegal to want.

Thanks to Midway, the classic series of SpyHunter has made a full return to the video game scene, arriving on each home console and now released as a handheld version of the game. The updated SpyHunter portable attempts to take the game into new territory as well as combines its traditional elements from the arcade. Now, players are pitted behind the interceptor rather than viewing it from the retro top down view. In doing this, SpyHunter resembles many of the early games we played during the Playstation generation. It boasts large car models with enough textures to support its 3D look. Thankfully, the entire movement of the game is fluid while still being able to display a lot of action that is used to remotely keep the player interested in the game.

SpyHunter features different environments of land and water, so when the interceptor approaches a wet surface, it makes a simple transformation. When upon floating upon water and advancing towards land again, the car changes back to its original four-wheeled setup. While the game never really offers the true feeling of speed that some may want in a racer, each level contains enough wide open space to zoom through. The roads are filled with tons of forks, jumps, hills and cars. Another advantage SpyHunter has over most racers is the fact that players are given the ability to turn around in any direction and are not confined to heading straight. This benefit comes into play when completing some of up to five mission objectives.

The initial weapons of the game are the machinegun and oil slicks. However, there are a total of eight other weapons including missiles, smoke screens, and Electro-Magnetic-Pulses. Trouble for players comes about when the interceptor looses half its armor and is forced to transform into a stylish, but volitile, motorcycle. In total there are eight mission-filled stages that require your G-6155 Interceptor to complete objectives like wiping out certain targets, collecting sat-coms, eliminating enemies on the road and in the air, and minimizing civilian casualties.

This is where the game runs into trouble. Though setting the game up with objectives was a wise idea for each console version, its portable counterpart won't keep a players interest after more than a couple of levels. Especially considering that the objectives get extremely repetitive, driving around can become rather boring and after a while everything looks almost the same. One problem with SpyHunter is that the objective list isn't available when playing a level, only beforehand. However, this negative is canceled out by my previous gripe of the objectives seeming repetitive; after the first level, you'll basically know what's expected of your time.

Despite containing some glamorous Game Boy visuals, SpyHunter does suffer some a couple of noticeable glitches that won't be hidden from the naked eye. At points, vehicles will clip each other by literally merging with traffic. From this, a number of frustrating gameplay issues arise causing the problem to expand beyond the visual realm.

There may be little reason for players to use weapons such as smoke screens or oil slicks because, without the retro view, the effects won't last long enough to throw off opponents. However, both weapons do come in handy in eluding or slowing down opponents in the two-player link mode. This mode should be more enjoyable for those who can take advantage of the cable support, as action is unpredictable and slightly more interesting than anything the arcade option offers.

Thankfully, Midway opted to include a battery save method, pleasing the gamers who often play a variety of Game Boy Advance titles. A password save system often annoys us into feeling that going back to the game or writing down the code isn't even worth it. That same occurrence would surely happen with some of those gamers when playing SpyHunter, however with the battery save, it's no problem.