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Game info |
|  | Cisco Heat |  | Genre | Arcade Racing | Developer | Ice Software | Publisher | Image Works | Released | 1992 | Rating
 | Graphics: | 7.0 | Sound: | 7.0 | Gameplay: | 7.0 | Overall: | 7.0 |
| Reviewed by | ndial | In Cisco Heat you race across the streets of San Francisco in a five levels race against fellow police officers! The game was originally released for the arcades by Jaleco in 1990 and converted to the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore C64/128, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX and DOS in 1992. |
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Review |
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 STORY / GAMEPLAY
A charity race is set on the streets of California US! Unfortunately, the Tram Services seem to have total disregard for this race and insist on trying to operate their usual routes. Not only that, but the law-abiding public can be found trundling along the bumpy roads in their sedan cars! Your police car has only two gears: High and Low (can be switched by pulling up or down and pressing fire on your joystick or by hitting spacebar), enabling you to reach speeds of around 200 km/h (170 M/ph). You can start your race by choosing between two police cars, a 70s style bi-colored Ford or a modern 90s Nissan ZX Roadster. During the race, the only weapon you have is your horn! You can honk until cars ahead move out of your way (but this is not quite effective every time). While dodging the trams and the traffic you also have to be ready for 45 degrees slopes and 90 degrees bends (that is why, San Francisco is being chosen). And remember, avoid driving in the middle of the road as much as possible because many road block objects are set on your way (such as construction signs, oil leaks etc). The corners were Cisco Heat's primary claim to arcade fame, an effect that marked it out from the other race-based coin-ops. Well, Cisco Heat has a rather amateurish feel, it is far too short to provide a decent amount of joy and in no way competes with similar racers. But as an original (and quite famous) arcade title, we decided to include this game on our list.
GRAPHICS / SOUND The DOS version runs in VGA mode and is technically good compared to the arcade in terms but some nice original details are missing (also missing on the Atari ST and Amiga versions). The graphics are colorful but fail to offer a 3D sense of the traffic you overtake (and the surroundings i.e. buildings, trees). Both roads and hills move quite fast and the game feels faster than its counterparts Amiga and ST but the vehicles are poorly animated. The playable area is significantly smaller and is limited inside a border of a static representation of San Francisco! The sound supports Sound Blaster compatible hardware and features a nice introductory theme and a pretty good (though repetitive) in-game tune, including a few sound effects (i.e. police sirens etc).
GAMEPLAY SAMPLE VIDEO On our video below, you may watch the Atari ST, Amiga and MS DOS versions of the game! | |
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Screenshots |
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Gameplay sample |
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Comparable platforms |
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|  | Arcades (original version) |
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Hardware information |
| PC (ms-dos based) CPU: Various processors from Intel,AMD, Cyrix, varying from 4.77Mhz (Intel 8088) to 200Mhz (Pentium MMX) and up to 1995 (available on this site) MEMORY: 640Kb to 32MB RAM (typical up to 1996) GRAPHICS: VGA standard palette has 256 colors and supports: 640x480 (16 colors or monochrome), 640x350 in 16 colors (EGA compatability mode), 320x200 (16 or 256 colors). Later models (SVGA) featured 18bit color palette (262,144-color) or 24bit (16Milion colors), various graphics chips supporting hardware acceleration mainly for 3D-based graphics routines. SOUND: 8 to 16 bit sound cards: Ad-Lib featuring Yamaha YMF262 supporting FM synthesis and (OPL3) and 12-bit digital PCM stereo, Sound Blaster and compatibles supporting Dynamic Wavetable Synthesis, 16-bit CD-quality digital audio sampling, internal memory up to 4MB audio channels varying from 8 to 64! etc. Other notable sound hardware is the release of Gravis Ultrasound with outstanding features!
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 | CGA: 16-color palette (4 on-screen) |  | EGA: 64-color palette (16 on-screen) |  | VGA: 256-color palette (256 on-screen) | |
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