Chase H.Q. Mixes Out Run and Miami Vice

Chase H.Q. was a great arcade game which built on Out Run to introduce another layer of game-play and vastly improved visuals. This time you took on the role of a cop driving a Porsche 928 and along with your partner you were tasked with bringing down bad guys in high speed pursuits. Chase H.Q. was even more like Miami Vice than Out Run had been and the poster even featured a guy wearing a white jacket with rolled up sleeves and a T-shirt beneath, the height of eighties fashion.

It was developed and released by Taito in 1988 and proved to be very popular in the arcades. The arcade industry was in decline by this time so Chase H.Q. probably proved to be a bigger success on the growing home computer market and it was also ported for the warring NES and Sega Master System consoles.

The game was all about capturing your criminal target and at the start of each level you got a report on the object of your pursuit. A time limit began to tick away and you had to race to catch up with the criminal in order to receive an extension. The roads were packed with civilian traffic to avoid and they occasionally split giving you an option of routes, if you took the wrong route it would take longer to catch the bad guy. Once you had the criminal car in your sights you had to repeatedly ram it to make him pull over and give himself up. There were five villains in total each in a different sports car from the White Lotus Esprit of the Idaho Slasher to the Red Porsche 928 of the Eastern Bloc Spy.

There were a couple of stand up cabinet versions and a sit down version of the game and all featured a steering wheel, an acceleration pedal and a gear stick for high or low gear. There was also a turbo boost button on the gear stick. It spawned another two arcade game sequels and it for a short while it was one of the most popular machines in the arcade.

The graphics were great and offered a big improvement over Out Run which had come out just a couple of years before. With Chase H.Q. the New York backdrop looked more realistic and the feeling of speed was enhanced. When you rammed the criminal’s car it would get visibly damaged and eventually catch fire and when he finally pulled over you’d be rewarded with an arrest animation. The simple HUD gave you your time limit, score, speed and distance covered at the top and then a handy meter on the right which showed your position in relation to the bad guy. There was also a rev meter on the left and to avoid confusion when the criminal came into sight a big arrow popped up which said “Criminals Here!”

Chase H.Q. was a pretty short game but the added element of having to run a bad guy off the road was a winner and the Miami Vice styling was endlessly appealing in the eighties.