3D Deathchase Review

By Spanner Spencer Published 20 August, 2007

Quick, before death gets away!

Version tested: Retro

First, we should try and remember just how long ago 1983 was, otherwise nothing about Deathchase will seem remarkable. It would be unjust to rob this brightly coloured 16K hero of its rightful title as a genuine, carnage-centric classic that provided the much needed deforestation of rampant, trite, cutesy games so today's wonderful concrete sprawl of shameless hyper-violent entertainment barrages could be built.

It looks crap now, and plays like a lame pig, but in the insipid '80s Deathchase was a marvel to behold. Gamers had never seen such a high-octane, reckless dance with the devil on their home computers and the excited confusion of magazine reviews spoke volumes about the state of gaming at the time. Reviewers sat at their mechanical typewriters astounded and lost for words after their breathtaking, breakneck pursuit through Micromega's lush forests, with no comparisons to draw for the guilty exhilaration they experienced when mercilessly gunning down tanks, helicopters and other bikers without any real cause other than brazen entertainment. Fourteen levels of rapid, sadistic mayhem through both night and day shocked (and delighted) the gaming world as never before.

1

Deathchase broke the racing barrier as the power bike waved goodbye to the stereotypical racetrack with two fingers, this is true, but Mervyn Escourt's influential racer did so much more. Although no one knew it at the time, it was a grand overture to today's prolific first person shooter genre, and only escaped controversy and criticism during its life on the shelves as conscientious objectors hadn't yet turned their tunnel vision on home computers.

It came and went as quickly as the bike muscled through the relentless forest, but Deathchase introduced the world to the concept of aggressive, mature gaming, and we should feel obliged to fire off a round of bullets into the sky in homage to a true genre founding title.

9 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy

Comments (9) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • SirClive #1 5 years ago

    Spanner, how can you say such cruel things?

    "It looks crap now, and plays like a lame pig"

    Ouch, that hurts!

    3D Deathchase (to give it its full title) is in my top 3 Spectrum games of all time and I still play a game every week or so via emulation on my PSP.

  • IP #2 5 years ago

    "It looks crap now, and plays like a lame pig"

    So, why give it a 9, then, if it used to be good, but isn't now? Utter fucking bollocks anyway, since Deathchase still plays really well, despite the limitations of the original hardware and the concept—at least if you're not expecting loads of depth (in which case, best stay away from most retro, frankly).

    Next week, BBC Micro Elite: It's fucking rubbish—it doesn't even have textures on the ship surfaces.

  • Blerk #3 5 years ago

    I don't think this does play badly now, actually. It's blisteringly fast after the first few rounds and massively impressive for a 16k game. Perhaps he was forgetting to whistle the Street Hawk theme while playing? We always used to find that helped massively.

  • GamesConnoisseur #4 5 years ago

    Aye this was likewise among my fav on Speccy.

  • powerup #5 5 years ago

    Agreed, this is an awesome speccy game, I was amazed that it seemed not to be on the list, then I noticed it was down as just 'Deathchase' rather than 3D Deathchase.

    I seem to remember it loaded in about 20 seconds flat too; amazing back in those days off a cassette!

  • Krun #6 5 years ago

    3D deathchase was unique and still is.

    Please will someone make another ride though a randomly generated forest game chasing down something. This could be done so well now.

  • smelly #7 5 years ago

    I remember Your Sinclair having this as their Number 1 spectrum game of all time.

    Still havent played it

  • realnize #8 4 years ago

    i agree with krun someone should remake this amazing game.

  • IronCladChicken #9 2 years ago

    Here's a 3D Deathchase java/browser game: 3D Deathchase