Ocean
£10.99/£15.99
It's demolition derby time again as our favourite cops return to the beat. Ray Broady and Tony Gibson are on the trail of the Mayor's kidnapped daughter Jennifer in their own special way. AS Tony's black Porsche 928 was wrecked by his stock car tactics in Chase HQ he now drives a trendy red Japanese sports job (well, the car's red in the coin-op).
Five levels of road-racing action make up the game and the objective is to stop the head honcho at the end of each section. An APB (All Points Bulletin) is called at the start of each section and , when you know who to hit, hit 'em as hard as you can.
The chase begins in earnest with you putting pedal to metal in search of a Porsche 911. of course damned annoying civilians are in the way again, but this time you have a surprise up your sleeve (or rather in your holster): a large 9mm automatic pistol. It's easy to poke your head out of the sunroof and blast away at all and sundry in true Sledge Hammer style.
As with Chase HQ a timer ticks down, so hit the turbo button as often as possible (though the charges are limited). When the target vehicle is in sight a large arrow appears over it and the blasting fun can commence. A damage meter appears to the left of the screen. This time, instead of ramming the crook's car with your front bumper to nab him, your gun will have to do the job.
As damage increases so does the height of the meter until his car is full of lead and you're moved to the next APB where another chase awaits. When all the bad guys have been capture it's off to a warehouse to rescue Jennifer. The good news is she's still alive, the bad news is you only have thirty seconds to get to her before the warehouse goes BOOM!!!.
I loved the original Chase HQ in the arcades, but when SCI appeared it seemed little more than a continuation of Chase. All that really changed was Ray's ability to shoot the villains rather than ram them, and to me half the fun was in smashing the bumper off the crook's car. All I have to say about SCI in nice graphics, but gameplay does not go way beyond Chase.
MARK [75%]
It's a bit of a tradition with sequels for them to be disappointing. Chase HQ 2 obviously didn't want to break that tradition because it's sadly not much cop. The game isn't all that bad, it's simply too similar to the original in looks and gameplay. You jump into the seat of your flashy car, drive speedily along, then bash into a criminal's car over and over until he surrenders. This you have to repeat time after time until the end of the game. The only noticeable difference between this and Chase is that you're now armed with a gun to take pot shots at your target as well as bashing them. Still, Chase HQ 2 is a great game if you don't have the original.
NICK [72%]
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