| abstract | - Highway Hunter is a DOS-based Vertical Scrolling Shooter created by Russian developer Omega Integral Systems (as Highway Fighter, in that country) and published in 1994 by Safari Software, a division of Epic Games (Then Epic Megagames). Twenty Minutes Into the Future, a hostile alien race has invaded and occupied Earth, forcing humans to toil away in their workshops and mines. You play the role of an unnamed human mechanic, working in an auto-repair shop on a prototype alien supercar, the MASTER. When the aliens aren't looking, you steal the MASTER and make a desperate bid for freedom. Apparently, La Résistance is out there somewhere, and your goal is to reach the unoccupied zones where they dwell. The MASTER is a powerful vehicle indeed, able to take several hits before blowing up, unlike many scrolling shooter vehicles. Dropped powerups you can acquire include health boosts, weapon upgrades (which stack on top of one another- if a weapon runs out of ammo, it reverts to the next level down, rather then bumping you back to your basic laser), shield upgrades that let you ram enemy vehicles and absorb projectiles, and the occasional Smart Bomb. Each level has you progress along a raised highway, fighting off enemy cars and aircraft, eventually reaching a Boss Battle. The game is divided into three episodes: Evil Drivers, The Lost Roads, and Anarchy. Each consists five levels, beginning with Earthlike environments and progressing towards steadily more alien ones, likely the result of Terraforming.
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