Descpription:
At the start of each level the player is informed who they are
ursuing, and are quite a distance from them: They must apprehend the criminal
before their time limit expires. The criminal's car is constantly moving away, so
if the player repeatedly crashes or drives too slowly, then the criminal will escape.
At some points during the game the road splits, and the correct turn must
be taken, otherwise it will take longer to catch the criminal. When their
vehicle is reached, the time limit is extended; the vehicle must be rammed
a number of times until the criminal is forced to stop, and then arrested.
The game includes five levels. As both the initial time limit to reach the
criminal and the time extension to ram the criminal are just 60 seconds
the game is often criticised for being very short - a player who is able
to finish the game on one credit will enjoy at most ten minutes of gameplay.
(However, this criticism can be levelled at many other similar arcade games,
including Outrun, which has a similar maximum playing time, although the latter
game does not allow the player to insert another credit to continue.)
Although superficially similar in technology to Sega's Outrun, Chase HQ features significant
technical advancements over that title in the presentation of perspective, hills and track splits.
