Spy Hunter 2 Hands-On Impressions

During a recent visit to SCEE's PlayStation Experience in London, we were able to spend a little time with the PS2 version of Midway's SpyHunter 2. We only got to play through a single level from the game, but even in that short space of time we were able to take control of three very different vehicles.

Starting out in the standard car form of the G-8155 Interceptor, our mission was to infiltrate the grounds of a castle. What this meant in terms of gameplay was that as we raced along the road with snow drifts to either side of us, and did our best to destroy any enemy road vehicles and helicopters that showed up, we had to make sure that we got under a series of portcullis-style gates before they closed. Since the closing of the gates was almost certainly triggered by our approach, getting past them was a formality really, but they did help to give the level a greater sense of urgency.

After reaching the castle, our subsequent escape route took us into a cave where the snow was a little too deep for our car to handle, so the Interceptor switched to its new snowmobile form. Although the handling was quite different, we had access to exactly the same machine gun and missile weapons that we did in the car, and as we made our way down the mountain slopes, the effects of the bullets hitting the snow and the nearby explosions were really quite impressive. Scattered areas of pine trees proved to be almost as dangerous as our enemies as we raced toward the bottom of the mountain and, we assumed, the end of the level.

When we arrived at the frozen lake at the foot of the mountain and saw an aircraft looking ready to evacuate us, we thought we'd beaten the level, but when we drove inside it we actually got to take its controls and pursue our enemies from the air. We managed to take a few shots at the bad guys before we were shot out of the sky, but we didn't get to see any more of the level on this occasion unfortunately. Nevertheless, we walked away from the demo area feeling pretty good about Spy Hunter 2, which, if the level we played today is any indication, should be a more than worthy sequel to its enjoyable predecessor.