Highway Pursuit

Highway Pursuit is a computer game remake of Spy Hunter created by Adam Dawes in association with Retrospec, initially released in 2003. Highway Pursuit puts players in control of a powerful sports car, in a world filled with enemy agents, seeking to take control of the road. Their mission is to destroy as many of these enemy agents as possible, without putting any civilian life at risk. Along the way, players will encounter varied terrain and weather conditions, a number of different enemy vehicles intent on their destruction, and also a few helpful pointers from their colleague, Ashley, back at HQ.

The Beginning/Hairstyle
When you first click Play you will be shown a picture of GranFow City, also stating the year (2010). That just shows what Julie's city looks like, but skip that. Next a comic strip (you'll find out later). After that, you will see the Hairstyle section, the first one you play in. (You'll be shown the introduction).

The introduction talks about how to play the game, but you can find a lot of help in the help file that was included with your game. Next is Food, where you serve customers any food! But there are only chocolate bars, and there is no animation in the customers. Basically, this is a short level, but is easy to play. The map (shown after you complete a level), shows hills with a beach at the top-right of the screen. At the top-left, there is Granfow City, and right in front of it are the apartments, and

Enemies/Food/Adventure/Maze
Players should beware of several types of enemy vehicles that will try to destroy them:


 * Alien : Alien is the first type of enemy you will encounter. (Only in Adventure). These monsters are really harmful and attack you by touching you from any direction. They will try to steal your gems of from you. They are a green in colour.


 * Mummy : Mummy is a much nastier enemy. (in Maze). These things have retractable blinkers fitted to their eyeballs, with a poisonous touch. If you are touched from any side by a Mummy when the blinkers are fully extended, you will fall dead instantly.


 * Dr. Rhof : Dr. Rhof is bullet proof, and no amount of speed from the players' evasive move will get him tricked. The only way to destroy him is to fire at his ship while slowly moving to make his shots reflect and kill him. But be careful--always limit your shooting, or you will also be killed as well!!


 * Cars : The cars will speed above 78mph. and is able to block players from wherever side they are. Cars can make quite a nuisance of themselves. They will kill players if they try to go across the road, plus they're bullet-proof. The only way to cross the road is to wait for a large open gap and right when it's at the bottom of the screen, run! (You'll have to dodge the other incoming cars).

Power-up/Emblems
The power-ups are used essentially to maintain score, speed, escape and stability. They're located in Maze, Adventure, Space, and Platform.


 * Pendant Jewel : The 6 Pendant Jewels represent power to defeat Dr. Rhof, and mostly for chances of beating any more of his traps. They're located at the bottom of the screen, on the map.


 * Oil van : The Oil van fits an oil canister to the back of a player's car. When deployed, the oil pours out onto the road behind players, causing any cars that drive over it to skid uncontrollably until they crash. This can be very powerful, and also allows players to destroy the armored Jeep. Players should be careful not to let civilians get caught in the mess.


 * Missile van : The Missile van adds a small number of surface-to-air missiles to a player's car. These can be used to try and destroy the Helicopter. Players should try to fire their missile when the helicopter is almost directly above them, in order to minimise the chances of the missile missing its target.


 * Repair van : The Repair van repairs some of the damage players' cars have sustained while driving. All of the weapon vans provide a small boost, but the repair van does the best job of getting the player's car back into shape. These vans are yellow.


 * Life van : The Life vans are the rarest type of vans in the game. They are identical to the van that starts players off every time they die or start a new game.

Scoring
Players are awarded points for the following:
 * Distance driven
 * Destroying an enemy Crasher car: 500 points
 * Destroying an enemy Blade car: 1,000 points
 * Destroying an enemy Jeep car: 1,500 points
 * Destroying a Helicopter: 5,000 points
 * Docking with a Weapons van: 500 points

When players destroy a civilian car, all scoring is suspended for five seconds. During this period, "...no score..." is displayed at the top of the screen instead of the player's game score.

Players will be given an extra life at 100,000 and 200,000 points.

Levels
The game has a series of levels that can be reached as the game progresses. The levels are as follows:


 * Forest
 * Desert
 * Forest
 * Fog
 * Forest
 * City
 * Forest
 * Ice

After this the sequence repeats. The game continues infinitely, there is no "end" to the game except when the player runs out of lives.

Development history and future
The initial version of the game was developed over an 18-month period from mid-2002 until its release date on the 12 November 2003. A subsequent version, v1.1, was released on the 6 January 2005 with a variety of small improvements to the controls and flow of the game.

While the main game dynamic is based on the arcade game Spy Hunter, the design attempts to include new feature not included within the original game in order to add some originality. The main feature is the addition of voice communication from the player's base of operations, provided by a game character named Ashley. The inspiration for this was provided by another classic racing game, Chase HQ.

The author has stated that there are no current plans for a sequel.

Cheats
The original game did not contain any cheat modes, although a number of players found ways to hack into the game and adjust its score and life counters. Strangely, a German web site, spieletipps.de, published a number of cheat codes for the game, none of which actually existed. After receiving numerous puzzled emails, the author decided to include the cheats into the second release of the game, adding several more at the same time.

Media coverage
Highway Pursuit has appeared on the cover discs of a variety of computer magazines.

More notable appearances include:


 * a mention on the April 2004 British edition of PC Gamer magazine (in which it was described as "A SpyHunter remake. It's better than the terrible update that the game received on the consoles. A simple left-right car-skidder makes for a playable and difficult game.").
 * a review on the Sky One TV programme Gamezville on Sunday 22 August 2004.
 * featured as cool site of the day on Kim Komando's web site on 27 June 2007.