Deathchase remains the stuff of legend within ZX Spectrum circles.

The game arrived fairly early on in the Spectrum’s life, so much so that few gamers were lucky enough to swipe a copy off the shelves of WH Smith—at least not until the much later rerelease. Discussion of this glittering prize, within the playground’s elite gaming cliques, amounted to little more than whispers and rumours, often conducted in a hushed, reverent tone. The stature of the game’s reputation seemed inversely proportional to the number of people who actually played it.

Despite its less than ubiquitous nature, Deathchase would regularly top the polls and top ten lists of the various Speccy magazines. The reason became obvious once gamers were able to secure a copy: the game’s as addictive and more-ish as a packet of of Jaffa Cakes.

Like many classic games, Deathchase offers that perfect balance of simple gameplay mechanics and relatively impressive technology. There’s only two things you need to do within the game—hunt down enemy motorbikes and avoid crashing into trees. It all sounds ridiculously easy on paper, but as you fire up your vehicle and charge into the forest you soon discover a cunning implementation of the risk and reward system. To kill the enemy bikers you need to accelerate to a sufficiently high speed before they’re in range of your weapons. The faster you go, the more likely you’ll end up slamming into a tree.

Ah yes, the trees.

The monolithic perennials are the only thing standing between you and victory. The enemy bikers don’t shoot back. The helicopters and tanks that occasionally sweep across the horizon, imitating the flying saucer in Space Invaders, don’t even have a go at you. But the trees are out to get you.

And get you they will, because sooner or later you’ll get greedy. Your desire to catch up with the enemy and start taking pot shots at them will be your downfall. You won’t be able to blame the joystick, the keyboard or some perceived imperfection in the collision detection. If you fuck up, it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Of course, after you’ve finished tweezing splinters from your face, you’ll go back for more. As you plough through the first day/night cycle, you’ll scoff at the non-existent challenge. Trees are scarce and enemy bikers make no special effort to flee. During the second cycle, you suddenly find yourself with a few more trees to deal with, requiring a little more concentration before you can throw a heatseeker up the enemy’s exhaust pipe. And so the difficulty level continues to ramp itself up with each subsequent stage. By the time you’ve reached the fifth sector, you’ll forget all about the bikers, wishing you could just pull over and perhaps enjoy a scenic picnic rather than play chicken with several tonnes of virgin pine.

As you sip on your Appletiser, crack open a Babybel and allow your thoughts to wander to safer, less tree-ridden times, you may eventually consider the incredible opportunity that existed to present Deathchase as a fully licensed tie-in based on the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi. It’s all there—with a little imagination and perhaps the aid of a Star Wars soundtrack CD you’re essentially Luke Skywalker chasing after Imperial troops on the forest moon of Endor.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. No big deal, because Deathchase remains a superlative example of retro gaming at its finest. Simple controls, simple objectives and a thousand ways to die.