Taito Chase H.Q.

Description

Taito Chase H.Q. sees police officers Tony Gibson and Raymond Broady pursue five criminals through the streets in their unmarked sports car, receiving information from dispatcher Nancy. Each stage begins with a description of the suspect and getaway vehicle before placing the player on a branching road with a strict time limit. The objective is to catch up with the criminal before time expires and then repeatedly ram the vehicle until its damage meter is depleted. Once stopped, the suspect is arrested and the game moves to the next pursuit.

Gameplay perspective is from behind the car, with traffic, barriers, roadside objects, and sharp bends interfering with the pursuit. A distance indicator shows how far ahead the target remains, while a limited supply of turbo boosts temporarily increases speed. Reaching the criminal begins the second phase and extends the timer, but ramming must be balanced against avoiding traffic and staying on the road. The Master System version adds a shop between stages where money earned from arrests can purchase improved tyres, a stronger bumper, better oil, additional turbo boosts, or a temporary supercharger. These upgrades improve steering, acceleration, maximum speed, and the damage inflicted when striking the target. Automatic and manual transmission options are available, with manual control dividing acceleration between low and high gears.

The conversion preserves the arcade game’s chase-and-ram structure but substantially reduces its spectacle given the hardware. Roads are flat and comparatively featureless, without the dramatic hills, dips, dense scenery, sprite scaling, and sampled speech of the arcade machine. The colourful cars are clearly represented and the controls are responsive, but roadside obstacles provide limited variety and stages can feel like repeated runs through narrow corridors. Its five pursuits are also brief, and completing the final stage simply returns the game to the beginning for another loop rather than providing a substantial ending. Overall a respectable conversion, keeping the speed, straightforward controls, and adding the useful upgrade system, but it has comparatively sparse scenery and weak sound, which lacks much of the visual intensity and excitement that distinguished the arcade original.