Gaming Target - Xbox: SpyHunter

Written by Leigh Culpin on September 11, 2003

Full Review: УCome on and let the hunt be the Hunted!Ф Ц Huh?

First off, let me start by saying that the original Spy Hunter was one of the greatest arcade classics I've ever played. The addition of it is also one of the better features found in the new Spy Hunter from Midway. There are a decent amount of УhiddenФ features and secrets, but quite frankly, they aren't really worth the effort.

The game pays tribute to the original in many ways Ц bad guys in various vehicular forms, lots of cool weapons (Rockets, EMPs, Machine Guns, and a couple really cool ones you don't get Сtill the last couple levels), defense mechanisms (oil slicks, smoke screens, and even fire trails), and the weapons truck is still around to refill your ammo and health. Your vehicle, the Interceptor, has some sweet new features too Ц when you take too much damage it automatically turns into a bike that is faster and more maneuverable than your regular transport. It also turns into a boat if you drive into the water, and likewise, a jet ski should you take too much damage in that form. While these transformations aren't particularly stunning, the first few times you see them they'll certainly catch your eye.

More or less, the same goes for the graphics and audio Ц nothing wrong with either, but nothing special here either. The graphics are basically right out of the PS2 version, and they're very obviously not X-Box optimized. The audio is decent, though some of the car sounds are weak, and accelerating is disappointingly mute and low-powered, rather than a deep roar that you'd expect from such a sweet car. The soundtrack is mostly similar, somewhat boring techno songs. Although the theme song, Saliva's version of УThe Theme from Peter GunФ, is rather well done.

The gameplay also follows suite, though, it gets pretty repetitive Ц every mission is pretty much the same thing, and you have to complete all primary objectives, and later on, most of the secondary ones to advance to the last few levels. The scenery repeats itself also, with only a handful of different areas that are used over and over throughout the game. The objectives are generally all Уfind the thing and blow it up or collect itФ missions, and since numerous paths are available in most areas, the only difficulty is to locate these objectives. This sounds like a good thing, but unfortunately these do little but take away from gameplay, since most paths are either blatantly obvious or nearly impossible to find, and they all end up on the main track anyways.

Your armament that I touched on earlier sounds cool, but really you'll only find yourself using a select few weapons. The defensive ones are a really cool concept and look pretty good too, but seem to be there more for aesthetic appeal, since you won't really find any major uses for them. Once you get them, you'll use the homing missiles a lot, and the guns too, but the other weapons are generally more for special objectives (of which there are few), like disabling a Nuke with an EMP. To be fair, however, there is a respectable variety, and once you get a decent way through the game you'll be able to choose your playing style a bit more than earlier on, where you were limited to having only 2 or 3 weapons. The multiplayer is somewhat disappointing Ц each single player level has basically been taken and changed for one of the multiplayer game modes. The only problem is that each level has a predefined game mode -- you can't pick or choose. Not that that really matters anyways, since really the only available options are rather boring Ц a mode where whoever gathers the most УsatcomsФ wins, a mode where whoever kills the most chickens (yes, I said chickens) wins, and a racing mode where whichever player gets to the finish first wins. A co-op mode might have been a plus, especially since, in true PS2 form, only two players can go at it in multi anyways. However, co-op is nowhere to be found, making the multiplayer easily the most disappointing aspect of the game.

The only things worse than the multi, in fact, are the УbonusesФ you get when you complete a mission with all objectives under a certain time. These УsecretsФ consist of lame things like a green hud and music videos from Saliva that are already accessible as a DVD feature with no playing required. Actually, nearly all of the video or audio awards you'll get are available if you just drop your copy of Spy Hunter into a DVD player, which in effect make them hardly worth the effort. These seem more like a cheap way to create replay value than anything.