Spy Hunter
This weeks game is the legendary Spy Hunter, as chosen by Roy42. I must admit that whilst I'm aware of this game, I've never played it myself so I had to do a bit of reading up on the game before testing it! Very simply put, the game is a vertical top-down driving game, in which the player must destroy baddies cars whilst keeping their own armed sports car intact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_HunterWikipedia wrote:Spy Hunter is an vertical scrolling action/driving game with the player in the role of a spy driving an armed sportscar. The object of the game is to travel the freeway destroying as many enemy vehicles as possible while protecting civilian vehicles. The game uses top-down perspective.
The game begins with the player driving the fictitious G-6155 Interceptor. Various enemy vehicles try to destroy the player's car or to force it off the road, including a helicopter that drops bombs that can also leaves holes in the road. A counter increments the score while the car is moving. Additional points are earned destroying enemy vehicles using weapons or by forcing them off the road. After an initial lead-in time during which the player has an unlimited supply of cars, the player must earn extra cars by obtaining high scores. Destroying non-enemy cars halts the score counter for a short while and hard collisions with cars can also destroy the player's vehicle.
Following periodic forks in the road, players can enter a new 'territory' with different terrain and/or weather conditions. Players can also upgrade the car's standard machine guns by adding other weapons by enterting the Weapons Van, which appears in each new territory and can be periodically summoned by pressing the blinking "Weapons Van" button. Three special weapons are available: oil slicks, smoke screens, and surface-to-air missiles. Each has limited ammo and are lost if the player's car is destroyed. The game's dashboard shows which weapons are available, when lit.
It is possible for the player to convert the car into a cigarette boat for brief periods by driving through a special boathouse which appears infrequently at the side of the road after which the player is attacked by two different enemy boats.
INSTRUCTIONS
Ok, so first you need to download the ROM from here : http://upload.drarok.com/files/download ... pyhunt.zip
Then copy that file in to the 'roms' directory in your MAME folder. Then start the MAME app.
First of all remember to audit all games (file>Audit All Games), and then you're ready to play!
Basically, destroy enemy cars, don't shoot civvy cars. These two instruction screens are accessed by pressing the accelerator pedal :
CONTROLS & RULES
Ok, so Roy has chosen the most complicated game to control on MAME I've ever encountered, haha. If you're using a pad you should be able to reconfig the controls to a usable level, but it's a bit of a nightmare on keys. I would highly recommend hitting TAB when you're in the game and reconfiguring the controls however you want them. (TAB>INPUT THIS GAME) It seems like you only really use the machine gun weapon anyway, I've not managed to unlock/buy any of the others.
Usually in MAME pressing 5 inserts coin and 1 starts the game. In Spy Hunter, pressing 5 adds coin as usual, but to start the game you need to press whatever button you assign to the 'weapon truck'.
So, as usual, one credit, highest score wins. When you start the game, a timer will run down (top centre of screen). During this time, you have infinite cars. Once it runs out, you don't...
I don't know whether this game actually has a high score table or that I just didn't get a score high enough to put my name in when I was testing the game, but just in case - make sure you take a screen shot as soon as you see the GAME OVER words flash on screen. Your score is in the top right corner.
I think that should be everything. As usual highest score get 5 points, next highest 3 points and third place 1 point. Would be awesome to have some more entries this week. If anyone gets stuck, give me a shout, it's a particularly complicated one this week as far as MAME goes.
GO GO GO!
