Well, if you're like me, you learned there was a version of Spy Hunter for the Atari 2600 and went "oh my god, this is amazing!" Then you went and played it because you love the Atari in all of its pixelated glory and it excites you when you find versions of classic games that have been made available for the system which made itself the very name of retro gaming. Unfortunately, more often than not, you might as well not have bothered.

The original version for the arcade was gorgeous for its time, with pixelated but still pretty darn detailed graphics depicting visually interesting and distinct cars and gameplay which remains unmatched to this day. It's among my favorite arcade games of all time, zero exaggeration. So how does it translate?

Well, obviously the graphics suffered from a significant downgrade. I wouldn't say the graphics are awful necessarily. Mostly everything is visually distinct. Mostly. Some of the enemy cars are a little bit hard to tell apart, namely the Bulletproof Bully and the one that shoots at you with a shotgun who was always an a**h*** in the original game. You can get used to it pretty quickly, but it made for a significant road bump in learning how to play this version of the game. I don't really have a lot of complaints in terms of the graphics.

The sound, on the other hand, I simply have to complain about. I recommend that you do not play this game with headphones in, because 90% of the time you're going to hear one of two sounds: The irritating engine noise, or the irritating sound to indicate that a car with spiked wheels is on-screen. Much of the sound is classic Atari noises like the famous falling bomb, an explosion, and a crude version of the theme song from the original game. However, most of the game time is taken up by the engine sound. Honestly, it would have been better if it had simply looped the theme song over and over again, but then I would have complained about that instead. Hmm.

There are also a few gameplay tweaks in this version. Ramming into a car at full speed doesn't kill you like in the original unless you're running into the blue spiked car. However, running into an explosion does. This creates many curious moments where you'll gun down an enemy car and then be killed not by the car itself but by the pixels which make up the explosion animation. This makes killing the Bulletproof Bully much more asinine than it needs to be, because you have to run him off the road but you can't risk being caught in his explosion. It's just ludicrous that our spy car is strong enough to withstand a head-on collision but not a fireball.

Another quirk in the gameplay is the weapon system. Like in the original Spy Hunter, you can retreat into the safety of weapons vans to gain weapons, and you have an inventory at the bottom of the screen. Now, the Atari joystick consists of an analogue stick and one button. If the analogue stick is used to move, and the button is used to fire, how do you switch weapons? Good question. I can't figure it out. I figure it must be like the infamous Indiana Jones game in which you need a second controller to switch weapons, but since I'm playing this on an emulator that only supports one controller I guess I'll never know for sure. Maybe someone else can clarify it in this thread.

The driving mechanic itself is deliberately simplified. Your score timer is no longer stopped if you kill civilian cars, so gun them down to your heart's content. You have a frankly ridiculous number of lives, which means that either you start with more or it's ludicrously simple to get more. I can't decide which. One important aspect of driving which I feel I should address is the ability to tell how fast you're going. This version attempts to have what looks like a speedometer off to the side, but it's visually indistinct, and it's difficult to eyeball how fast you're going or how much you have to slow down when the road starts to get cramped. Speeding up and slowing down can be a bit sensitive at times, but if you practice a little bit you'll do just fine.

Now, I'm required to give points for story and depth, but really, it's Spy Hunter. The story is that you're a spy driving down the road and you have to avoid or kill baddies. You keep driving until you inevitably f*** up and get yourself killed. It's a classic arcade-style game, and your only objective is to go for the high score.

All in all, I'd say that this game is worth a look, but it's pretty much a coin toss whether you're going to like it or not. I'd say it's fun enough, but it's vastly inferior to the original arcade cabinet. I don't know if that's unfair to say given the console and the time period, but that's my stance. All in all, for a faithful but quirky adaptation of a classic, 8 out of 10.

This is a pretty good review, though I have never played the game.

You put in a good amount of effort into each category and it's showing. This is a solid review, and the only thing you could have done extra would be to add the grades for each category into the post. But other than that, it's a good review.

It sounds like the kind of game that I would want to give a shot, though I am not entirely sure about it.

zanderlex : Thank you. My first game reviews were written on Newgrounds, and I got a lot of practice giving as much constructive criticism as I can, especially for games that were currently in development. Not that that really works for an Atari game that will probably never see the light of day again ;

It didn't really occur to me to write down my scores for each category, since my reviews are much more fluid than a category-by-category description, and my overall score for a game is often independent of my personal views on individual aspects of the game, but I'll try to keep that in mind in the future.

Well maybe dont put them into the actual review, but after you write it out, put a few spaces at the end and then put in a grade for each review, but away from the actual review itself.

Good review I like the fact that you make reviews for old games that don't have a review instead of make a review for a game that has like 5 already keep up the good work man.

Not only is this a good review but I tip my hat to whomever made this hack. A nice rendition of Spy Hunter for the Atari 2600.

Good review Crawl, but unfortunately I'm not like you (because I never owned an atari in the first place) like what you stated in the first paragraph, but after I read your review I watched both versions, and I have to say that is amazing for a game in the early 80s, and I might have come across the arcade version in a hacked PS1 CD (the one where it opens an emulator) somewhere...dunno, but I remember that the car CAN JUMP! But can't shoot guns.

Anyway, I think I want to play this game now.....in the arcade version, I mean why should I play the atari version when there is a superior arcade version?