The PC Engine version of Taito‘s classic car chase game, Chase HQ, is pretty decent. It was ported by Daiei Seisakusho for Taito , and is reasonably accurate, although it’s not quite as good as the arcade original itself. No surprises there, really, because the PC Engine (or the North American TurboGrafx-16 counterpart) is a small 8-bit console that was known for punching above its weight, but it wasn’t able to perform miracles.

Chase HQ on the PC Engine runs pretty fast – especially at top speed, when turbo is enabled – although the car movement isn’t quite as smooth as it maybe should be. The road does undulate a bit, which is good, but it’s a bit too subtle to be truly impactful.

Avoiding traffic (a major part of the game) isn’t easy, and when you reach the target car and start bumping into it (to make it stop), your rebounds do tend to cause collisions with other traffic or roadside objects. It takes practise and skill to stay on the tail of a car you’re pursuing, and to not spin-out and crash.

That said: Chase HQ on the PC Engine is still fun to play, in spite of the difficulty. The graphics and music are very good, and there’s enough challenge and variety to keep you absorbed for some time.

Considering that the game was initially released in 1990, the PC Engine port was arguably the best home version of the game available at that time – at least until it was surpassed by the FM Towns version in 1991.

More: Chase HQ on Wikipedia