Don't stop 'til you blow 'em up.

If you love James Bond's cool car but get bored with all that sneaking around and talking, SpyHunter is the game for you.The hackneyed backstory has an evil corporation bent on global domination. Yawn. The real fun begins when you take the wheel of a G-1655 Interceptor for 14 lead-footing missions around the world.Options on this factory special include dual machine guns, heat-seeking missiles and the capability to lay down a nasty oil slick. When badly damaged, a G-1655 sheds its exoskeleton and becomes a high-speed motorcycle. When it lands in water, a G-1655 instantly morphs into a juiced-up gunboat. If the boat, in turn, takes enough damage, it will become a personal watercraft on steroids.In many ways SpyHunter is the most basic form of video gaming, i.e. drive fast and blow stuff up. It's a formula that worked when SpyHunter entered the arcades at about the same time that Madonna debuted on Top 40 radio. It's a formula that continues to work in today's 3D, 60-frames-per-second world. It's a formula that will probably work when consoles read brainwaves and project holographic images.

A Kinder, Gentler SpyHunter?
Developer Point of View has mixed things up by adding peaceable such as avoiding civilian casualties, placing tracking beacons and activating "Satcoms" (i.e., driving through glowing orbs).You unlock new missions by meeting a quota for objectives completed ¯- for example, to unlock mission five, you'll have to complete 14 out of 19 total objectives in the previous missions. Two-player missions are unlocked by completing all objectives for that mission in single-player mode.

You'll get no credit for a mission if you don't complete it in time or if your vehicle is destroyed by enemy fire. Some missions feature checkpoints at which you'll get a brand-new G-1655 from a Knight Rider-esque support truck.With muddy palettes and pixilated explosions, SpyHunter is about as visually exciting as a UPS delivery van. Sonically the game is much better, with Saliva's cover of the "Peter Gunn Theme" guaranteed to rock your socks and other foot apparel off.The game really shines, though, in its the over-the-top arcade gameplay. It certainly helped that developer Point of View got a hand from Paradigm Entertainment, whose frenetic Beetle Adventure Racing was one of the top N64 racers ¯- and that's saying something, pal.Special plaudits are due for the ever-clever AI. Enemy vehicles will slow down, speed up and take evasive action, all the while heaving shells your way. Badly damaged helicopters will try to crash-land right on top of you. Towering gun batteries in towers will rake the road with merciless fire even after you've passed them.SpyHunter is in stores now. Two memory blocks are needed to save progress on a Memory Card 59 (not included).