I was excited for a long time about Midway’s Spy Hunter. A 3D Spy Hunter remake has been needed, I dunno, like forever? From the earliest rumors to getting to see it at last year’s E3, somebody was making a new Spy Hunter in 3D. Upon hearing bad reviews of the title (or at least the GameCube port) my excitement diminished a great deal. Now that I’ve been playing I’m almost glad my expectations were a bit lower. Spy Hunter for Cube certainly captures the spirit of the old game and is pretty fun. Aesthetically, the game isn’t all that impressive and it weighs down the overall product somewhat.

Although I’m really glad to have it, I can’t help but feel that Spy Hunter would have been a lot better if it was released last generation, for the N64 and PSX. I say this because unfortunately, the graphics look like they’re from that era. The Interceptor itself looks slick and has a reflective windshield (some water surfaces are also reflective), though just about all other graphics are JANKY.

Many enemies don’t blow up, but instead “shatter” into pieces. Some do catch fire, swerve and smoke before they explode. Explosions are god awful –a clump of 8-bit looking pixels. In fact, Billy told me that witnessing the crap-tastic explosions caused him to tear the Spy Hunter disc out of his Cube in disgust. Trees are similarly bad; clumps of green pixels shaded together. Hell, if you look, you’ll see pixel-filled textures everywhere. Ugh. Like Midway’s Gauntlet Dark Legacy, 2D objects and dated textures decorate the background. The worst are the cinema cut scenes; video is compressed and distorted, it’s almost unwatchable. I do hate to carry on and on about the graphics, but it’s a big distraction.

Fortunately, the gameplay is fairly solid. Driving, shooting, blowing stuff up… It’s all here. The classic boat transformation returns and many levels feature both land and sea paths. The Interceptor will also transform into a motorbike when it takes significant damage. The weapons vans are also back to help in the fight, though appear less frequently. Instead of offering power-ups midlevel, weapon vans replenish health and ammunition.

There are only 14 missions and each mission is over far too fast. This cures the problems of the old-school Spy Hunter: endless gameplay with no mission other than staying alive & killing bad guys. Even though I’m not halfway thru the game yet, this seems to be a little on the short side. Note that I said “seems.” There are multiple objectives each level, which also prevent it from being mindless driving and shooting. Each mission has a primary objective and several secondary objectives. Getting them all completed is no easy task.

A certain number of objectives are needed for unlocking each level, making it necessary to replay and master each level to accomplish each objective. In some ways it’s very similar to Beetle Adventure Racing, with many hidden alternate paths and shortcuts. This time around finding these routes isn’t entirely optional as many of the level objectives are hidden on them. It’s not easy to do. I can tell already that Spy Hunter has lots of replay due to the challenge. Unfortunately, I feel part of the challenge may come from quirky game mechanics… But maybe I just really suck.

The control is pretty excellent; very smooth and responsive. The set-up is simple and intuitive. A is accelerate and double tapping A will fire the boost rockets. R fires. X fires tracking devices. Y locks on for guided missiles. B brakes. Holding A and down will reverse, though if you’re going fast you’ll have to brake first (and in some places, reversing simply doesn’t work). The only drawback to the control scheme is switching between offensive and defensive weapons with Z, and firing defensive weapons with Z & R. It’s not all that easy to do, but defensive weapons (oil slick, smokescreen) don’t seem very effective so far anyway. I just got the black Type II interceptor that is awarded halfway thru the game; it has better guns and way better smokescreens, so maybe defensive weapons will get better later on.

The audio is pretty good. The classic Peter Gunn theme plays in full in between missions. Most of the music in-game I’ve experienced seems derived from this main theme, though I can’t help wishing the theme would kick in full swing during a level. Maybe it happens later on… The sound effects have a lot of flange, sounding a little metallic. Despite this, the effects are spot on: screeching tires, machine gun fire, rocket boosts… All sound great.

I highly recommend renting Spy Hunter first. It’s really fun and true to the original but it’s a bittersweet experience. The gameplay is fun and challenging but poor graphics and other minor problems really add up. I’m simultaneously frustrated and hooked. Look for a Spy Hunter review soon. That is, if I can beat all the #$&*@ objectives to pass the license test for the Type II Interceptor…