Overview
The game was originally brought to the arcades in 1988 by Taito, on the Taito Z System arcade board. Playing as a member of the Special Chase Investigation Department, players are tasked with chasing down the A.I controlled car before finally taking them down. The arcade version of the game included 5 levels for the player to play through.
It was later ported onto home console and computer, including the critically acclaimed ZX Spectrum version, by Daiei Seisakusho and Ocean Software.
It is a spiritual successor to Taito's Full Throttle. In turn, the game spawned two arcade based sequels called Special Criminal Investigation in 1988 and Super Chase: Criminal Termination in 1992.
The Turbografx-16 version of the game was released onto the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console in July 2008 costing 600 Wii points.
Gameplay
Viewed from a similar behind the car perspective as OutRun there is an initial 60 second time limit for the player to reach the fleeing vehicle. This is often made more difficult by having more cars on the road and also by providing the player with a choice of two branching roads to take; with one being a slower route than the other to the enemy car. Once the enemy car is caught up with another 60 seconds is given to the player within which they have to bump into the car a certain amount of times forcing it pull over to the side of the road. The game has 5 different criminals, one for each level:
- 1. Ralph, the Idaho Slasher
- 2. Carlos, the New York armed robber
- 3. Chicago pushers
- 4. L.A kidnapper
- 5. Eastern Bloc Spy
Legacy
The game's chase-themed driving gameplay, which involved ramming into enemy cars while avoiding the traffic, was a precursor to the chase/combat driving gameplay of later titles such as Road Rash, Mario Kart, Driver, Burnout, Grand Theft Auto, and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.
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