Wednesday 14 October 2009

Retro Lookback # 7: Street Hawk - Spectrum


Would you believe it? A bloke who has a motorbike accident and has lost the use of both his legs would be able to ride a suped up motorcycle with machine guns and can go aster than shit through a goose. No, I can't either. But it makes an exciting premise to the tv show Street Hawk which, unfortunately, only lasted one season. But the adventures of a detective using a 2-wheeled version of KITT was enough to warrant Ocean making a computer game, all the way back in 1985, which was a subscribers version....which was poor. So, being the good sports they are, this second version popped up. Shall we do an Evel Kineval and jump right in?

You start off playing a sort of Spy Hunter rip off, manouvering around cars and shooting the bad guys. The controls on this bit are a bit stiff, but once got used to, become second nature, as you race towards a crime scene. You nip along at a fair pace, once your speed has built up, so its quite realistic. Plus you can jump over cars, which I completely forgot about as I crashed into cars left right and centre!! The next bit is, I suppose you could call it, the grandfather of Silent Scope. You control a small reticule out side a bank where some villains are staging a robbery. You view the little gits through a scope and, with said reticule, shoot them as they emerge from the front entrance. This bit is quite good, but gets really frustrating, as when you fire, the reticule resets itself.

As with all of Ocean's tie-ins, there is a lack of sound. The only sounds come from when you fire your gun, when you pass another vehicle and when you hit another car. There's no rendition of the Street Hawk theme, and no music in the game either. It doesn't look bad, with colourful buildings, but why does Jesse and any other motorbiker for that matter, look like a funny face when viewed from above??

Its not a bad game, certainly one of Ocean's best tie-ins, but then it could have been better, mainly due to the controls and sound.

3/5

1 comment:

  1. you are being extraordinarily kind to this game JSW. I shan't be.

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