Spy Hunter is a 1983 arcade driving game developed and published by Midway Games (back then as Bally Midway). U.S. Gold published the game in various ports for Europe and by Sega and/or Sunsoft for North America. Over time, it was ported to Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit family, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Apple II, ColecoVision, MS-DOS, Nintendo Entertainment System and the BBC Micro.
The game was followed by a sequel, Spy Hunter II.
SH is a vertical scrolling driving where the player needs to drive the Interceptor and take out as many enemy vehicles as possible while avoiding killing civilians. At various times, the Interceptor will be driven in various terrains or weather conditions. The Interceptor can be equipped with oil slicks, smoke screens, and surface-to-air missiles aside from its machine guns.
Spy Hunter provides examples of:
- Driving into a Truck: How you get your power-ups. The Interceptor needs to get up close and drive into it.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: When you switch to the boat in the arcade game the oil slick (which is useless in water) is replaced with a rear-mounted flamethrower that kills any boat in its path.
- More Dakka: The player can start with dual machine guns as the default weapon. Over time, the Inteceptor can get oil slicks, smoke screens and missiles.
- Newbie Immunity: The original Spy Hunter gives you unlimited replacement cars while the initial timer is still counting down.
- No Ending: The game only ends when the player is killed with no more continues.
- Smoke Screen: A weapon the Interceptor can use to blind and distract enemy vehicles.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: At certain levels, you can drive a boat instead of the Interceptor.
- Weaponized Car: The Interceptor is a sedan equipped with various weapons from machine guns to missiles.
