Searched for this one but couldn?t find it. I have been anticipating this ever since I happened across gameplay footage of it on one of the many video services there are on the internet. I took a trip to Waterloo to meet a friend of mine on Saturday, and he suggested going to Namco Station, and there it was right in the entrance section.
The cabinet at Namco Station was the twin sit-down version. Each driver has the usual steering wheel, accelerator and break pedals (not that the latter was used when we were playing), a high-low shifter with the all important Turbo button on the side. The only new addition is a button to the right hand side of the steering wheel, marked ?Siren.? Unsurprisingly this turns on and off the blues and twos, as opposed to luring one?s car into the rocky sea in order to be devoured by naked women with sparrow?s legs.
Quids in and you are faced with a choice of going it alone ramming up sequential baddies real bad stage by stage, or alternatively you can waste police resources and go head to head, with you and your opponent pursuing the same target in Versus mode. There were two of us, and therefore serious videogame based rivalry was in the air ? so we didn?t play the single player game at all, opting each time instead to play against each other.
Once you have chosen your game mode, you then choose the stage on which to battle it out. We repeatedly chose ?Mountain? stage for our battles, which with hindsight was bloody stupid ? since as a result I can only write about that one. Anyway once the stage is chosen, it all kicks off.
?Nancy from Chase Headquarters? is back, although now rather than simply using the please radio to contact you and fill in the back story or moan on about how you are not going to catch the criminals in time - she goes a step further and communicates through what must be a HUD appearing as full motion video, overlaid on the game screen. This allows her to both sound and look extremely disapproving of your progress, by chastising you and pulling various ?I?m disgusted? poses at the camera. In versus each player has their own Nancy who rather spookily looks identical to their opponent?s one.
On ?Mountain? stage she instructs you to go after a big monster truck, with massive wheels, which is on the run up a mountain (yeah.) It?s a rolling start on this stage, so the game frantically tells you to put the gear shifter into high, and in seconds you?re away. I don?t know about single player, but the first thing that?s obvious is that you only start with one turbo boost (as opposed to the old skool three), and the time limit is extremely generous at around three to four minutes if I remember correctly.
Chase HQ 2 is a 3D racer, the colour palette is very pretty, the graphics do the job nicely and the game speed is fast, even when not using the Turbo. Where the game excels for me is in the handling ? they have really nailed this ? and if you were a fan of the original game, you will not be disappointed.
The track whizzes past at a serious speed, you and your opponent are pursuing a target that is ploughing through traffic, taking off road routes, and smashing through big but ineffective road blocks made out of your colleague?s squad cars. As all this is going off, you have to contend with flying debris from said roadblocks, snaking tracks with plenty of sections where your vehicle takes to the air, the relentless attacks on your car by your opponent, evasive manoeuvres of the target vehicle and powerful force feedback from the steering wheel..
If your driving skills let you down, and you crash into one of the many obstacles that are in your way ? usually it results in a drop in speed, a shift down to low gear, then back up again. However, if you go seriously wrong, and fly off the track into the passing scenery, you?ll be treated to a short slow-motion crash sequence (rather like the takedowns in Burnout 4), before being dropped back in the centre of the track, only slightly disadvantage by your inferior performance.
If you don?t keep an eye on the target you?ll be sold a duck as it veers sharply off at forks in the road, which you can miss, forcing you to take a longer route, giving it extra distance on you. This can be disastrous if your opponent goes the right way and you go the wrong way, since they will have a prolonged period of time with which to attack without your challenge.
On top of all this, there are collectable powerups in the form of extra Turbo boosts (a key strategy to wining the versus). These are placed in areas that are difficult to drive to (risk vs reward) or shortly after the sections where the target vehicle has tried to send you the wrong way down a fork in the road. They are not placed as one might expect, on the ?wrong? route, they are placed on the route that the target vehicle follows ? which really serves emphasise the importance of not letting it out of your sight.
The objective of the versus mode is to be the player that delivers the final blow to the target vehicle, putting it out of commission. Once players have caught up with the target, as per the original a damage meter appears, though this one is full and depletes, rather than beginning empty and increasing. This happens each time a player?s squad car smashes into the target. Multiple hits can be achieved by using the sections of track that give air, or grinding the target up against tunnel walls or road barriers. And of course ? using the Turbo.
The Turbo. When you push the button your car surges forward at an extremely fast speed, the picture blurs and flames explode all around it ? the key here difference here from the original is that while this is happening you also appear to be invulnerable to crashes. Still, as with the original, you can?t actually overtake the target vehicle, so once you pull alongside it, before the Turbo expires, its time to get those hits in.
The more the target vehicle is hit, the more damage is visibly apparent. In the case of the Monster Truck, the first things to go are its rear tyres ? first one, then the other depending on which you target ? and what?s good here is that the sustained damage adversely affects its movement and speed. So this means that the game as a climatic finish based on the versus element, rather than the isolated objective of simply running the target off the road to complete the level. As the target vehicle becomes more vulnerable, the more inclined players become to attack each other, until they believe they have enough of an upper hand to attack to switch back to the target and inflict MASSIVE DAMAGE with multiple hits hoping to deliver the final blow. What tends to happen here is a turbo boosted white knuckle ride of a finish, where both players using all the powerups they have at their disposal simultaneously trying to take the win.
The match is over after the final blow is delivered, and at this point the loser is offered the chance for a rematch, for the price of a single credit. Regardless of who wins this, the game is over and both parties must insert coins to play again.
The multiplayer experience alone is an excellent offering and is a superb sequel in its own right. I was as rapt as I was worried when I heard they were making this a proper Chase HQ 2, since I was a huge fan of the original, and never really felt that Special Criminal Investigation lived up to the clear-cut, fast paced gameplay of Chase HQ.
Taito have delivered a game that captures the true essence of the original, yet brings it right up to date ? in the same way that Outrun 2 did with Outrun. And while it is not as pretty or quite as good an arcade game as Sega?s offering it is brilliant none the less and well worth spending your beer money on.
The cabinet at Namco Station was the twin sit-down version. Each driver has the usual steering wheel, accelerator and break pedals (not that the latter was used when we were playing), a high-low shifter with the all important Turbo button on the side. The only new addition is a button to the right hand side of the steering wheel, marked ?Siren.? Unsurprisingly this turns on and off the blues and twos, as opposed to luring one?s car into the rocky sea in order to be devoured by naked women with sparrow?s legs.
Quids in and you are faced with a choice of going it alone ramming up sequential baddies real bad stage by stage, or alternatively you can waste police resources and go head to head, with you and your opponent pursuing the same target in Versus mode. There were two of us, and therefore serious videogame based rivalry was in the air ? so we didn?t play the single player game at all, opting each time instead to play against each other.
Once you have chosen your game mode, you then choose the stage on which to battle it out. We repeatedly chose ?Mountain? stage for our battles, which with hindsight was bloody stupid ? since as a result I can only write about that one. Anyway once the stage is chosen, it all kicks off.
?Nancy from Chase Headquarters? is back, although now rather than simply using the please radio to contact you and fill in the back story or moan on about how you are not going to catch the criminals in time - she goes a step further and communicates through what must be a HUD appearing as full motion video, overlaid on the game screen. This allows her to both sound and look extremely disapproving of your progress, by chastising you and pulling various ?I?m disgusted? poses at the camera. In versus each player has their own Nancy who rather spookily looks identical to their opponent?s one.
On ?Mountain? stage she instructs you to go after a big monster truck, with massive wheels, which is on the run up a mountain (yeah.) It?s a rolling start on this stage, so the game frantically tells you to put the gear shifter into high, and in seconds you?re away. I don?t know about single player, but the first thing that?s obvious is that you only start with one turbo boost (as opposed to the old skool three), and the time limit is extremely generous at around three to four minutes if I remember correctly.
Chase HQ 2 is a 3D racer, the colour palette is very pretty, the graphics do the job nicely and the game speed is fast, even when not using the Turbo. Where the game excels for me is in the handling ? they have really nailed this ? and if you were a fan of the original game, you will not be disappointed.
The track whizzes past at a serious speed, you and your opponent are pursuing a target that is ploughing through traffic, taking off road routes, and smashing through big but ineffective road blocks made out of your colleague?s squad cars. As all this is going off, you have to contend with flying debris from said roadblocks, snaking tracks with plenty of sections where your vehicle takes to the air, the relentless attacks on your car by your opponent, evasive manoeuvres of the target vehicle and powerful force feedback from the steering wheel..
If your driving skills let you down, and you crash into one of the many obstacles that are in your way ? usually it results in a drop in speed, a shift down to low gear, then back up again. However, if you go seriously wrong, and fly off the track into the passing scenery, you?ll be treated to a short slow-motion crash sequence (rather like the takedowns in Burnout 4), before being dropped back in the centre of the track, only slightly disadvantage by your inferior performance.
If you don?t keep an eye on the target you?ll be sold a duck as it veers sharply off at forks in the road, which you can miss, forcing you to take a longer route, giving it extra distance on you. This can be disastrous if your opponent goes the right way and you go the wrong way, since they will have a prolonged period of time with which to attack without your challenge.
On top of all this, there are collectable powerups in the form of extra Turbo boosts (a key strategy to wining the versus). These are placed in areas that are difficult to drive to (risk vs reward) or shortly after the sections where the target vehicle has tried to send you the wrong way down a fork in the road. They are not placed as one might expect, on the ?wrong? route, they are placed on the route that the target vehicle follows ? which really serves emphasise the importance of not letting it out of your sight.
The objective of the versus mode is to be the player that delivers the final blow to the target vehicle, putting it out of commission. Once players have caught up with the target, as per the original a damage meter appears, though this one is full and depletes, rather than beginning empty and increasing. This happens each time a player?s squad car smashes into the target. Multiple hits can be achieved by using the sections of track that give air, or grinding the target up against tunnel walls or road barriers. And of course ? using the Turbo.
The Turbo. When you push the button your car surges forward at an extremely fast speed, the picture blurs and flames explode all around it ? the key here difference here from the original is that while this is happening you also appear to be invulnerable to crashes. Still, as with the original, you can?t actually overtake the target vehicle, so once you pull alongside it, before the Turbo expires, its time to get those hits in.
The more the target vehicle is hit, the more damage is visibly apparent. In the case of the Monster Truck, the first things to go are its rear tyres ? first one, then the other depending on which you target ? and what?s good here is that the sustained damage adversely affects its movement and speed. So this means that the game as a climatic finish based on the versus element, rather than the isolated objective of simply running the target off the road to complete the level. As the target vehicle becomes more vulnerable, the more inclined players become to attack each other, until they believe they have enough of an upper hand to attack to switch back to the target and inflict MASSIVE DAMAGE with multiple hits hoping to deliver the final blow. What tends to happen here is a turbo boosted white knuckle ride of a finish, where both players using all the powerups they have at their disposal simultaneously trying to take the win.
The match is over after the final blow is delivered, and at this point the loser is offered the chance for a rematch, for the price of a single credit. Regardless of who wins this, the game is over and both parties must insert coins to play again.
The multiplayer experience alone is an excellent offering and is a superb sequel in its own right. I was as rapt as I was worried when I heard they were making this a proper Chase HQ 2, since I was a huge fan of the original, and never really felt that Special Criminal Investigation lived up to the clear-cut, fast paced gameplay of Chase HQ.
Taito have delivered a game that captures the true essence of the original, yet brings it right up to date ? in the same way that Outrun 2 did with Outrun. And while it is not as pretty or quite as good an arcade game as Sega?s offering it is brilliant none the less and well worth spending your beer money on.
Didn't even know about this, and i'm a HUGE Chase HQ fan! 
Thanks for the excellent first impressions, one question though... what car/s are in the game? Is the Porsche still there??
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