Chase HQ (1988)

Smash up 80’s sports cars and arrest criminals because Nancy says so.

“I first played Chase HQ in the arcade section of Megabowl and it completely blew my mind. It’s basically Cops and Robbers Outrun and you’re in a black Porsche 928; as a concept there wasn’t much that appealed more to a young lad at the end of the 1980’s.” Fran K (One of the 4Q owners)

The game is certainly less mind blowing these days, but it’s still a hoot to play. The simple gameplay loop of drive fast / catch up with criminal car / ram criminal car over and over until it catches fire is just the sort of thing that suits a quick couple of goes on the way back from the bar. I could never quite fathom how the criminal car got smashed to bits but the player’s Porsche remained pristine mind you.

Considered by some to be the spiritual successor to Taito’s earlier effort ‘Full Throttle’ Chase H.Q. was ported to most home computers and consoles with a wide variety of outcomes. Amstrad and Spectrum conversions were very decent, but Amiga owners got a particularly poor effort. There was also an arcade follow up released in1989, called S.C.I (special criminal investigation), although it didn’t quite reach the heights of the original game.

FQ Tip – Save your nitro boosts for the criminal car ramming, you’ll do faster damage.