Arcade Video game published 33 years ago:
Ikari Warriors (c) 1986 SNK.
Ikari Warriors is a vertically-scrolling run 'n' gun shoot-em-up in which one or two players take on the roles of two bandana-wearing musclebound soldiers as they engage in jungle warfare, fighting over land and water to reach the village of Ikari.
Players can rotate their guns through 360 degrees, allowing them to fire and move in all directions. Standing between the soldiers and their destination is a multitude of enemy soldiers, tanks, helicopters and reinforced bunkers.
The enemy soldiers utilise a number of different weapons, including machine-guns, grenades, super grenades and flame-throwers. The game's standard enemy troops wear blue uniforms, but there are also enemies in red uniforms that when killed, often drop power-ups that either give players more ammunition, increase the power of bullets and grenades or even kill all enemies on the screen. The players' munitions are limited in number so additional ammo and grenades must to be picked up along the way.
While most of the action takes place on foot, unoccupied enemy tanks can be found that can be entered and driven. Tanks offer increased firepower as well as resistance to enemy shots. Too many enemy hits, however, will eventually see the tank explode, this is proceeded by a warning flash to allow the player to exit the tank before the explosion. Should the player be caught inside when the tank explodes, a life is lost. Tanks also have a limited amount of fuel but extra fuel can be found to replenish it.
Another obstacle that players need to be wary of, whether on foot or in a tank, are hidden land-mines. These cannot initially be seen put will appear and flash as the player approaches. These cannot be destroyed and contact with them results in an instant death.
Unlike most arcade games, Ikari Warriors is not separated into different stages; the game takes place over one huge, scrolling stage. Ikari Warriors does have a continue feature, but it's only possible to continue from where the last game ended by first holding down the FIRE button, then pressing the start button. Simply pressing the start button restarts the game from the very beginning.
- TECHNICAL -
Game ID : A5004 'IW'
Main CPU : (2x) Zilog Z80 (@ 4 Mhz)
Sound CPU : Zilog Z80 (@ 4 Mhz)
Sound Chips : (2x) YM3526 (@ 4 Mhz)
Screen orientation : Vertical
Video resolution : 216 x 288 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 1024
Players : 2
Control : dial
Buttons : 2
- TRIVIA -
Released in March 1986.
SNK's answer to Capcom's Commando. Unlike Commando, Ikari Warriors features 360 degree gameplay, as a result of this the home conversions could never hope to match the arcade machine's rotary joystick controls.
This game is known in Japan as "Ikari".
The two heroes of the Ikari Warriors series, Paul and Vince, appear in the King of Fighters series as Ralf Jones and Clark Steel.
Ralf and Clark's commanding officer, General Kawasaki, was renamed Colonel Cook in the international version. General Kawasaki was named after Eikichi Kawasaki (former president and founder of SNK), while Colonel Cook was named after Leland Cook (co-founder of Tradewest, which distributed the game in the US).
Stan Szczepanski holds the official record for this game with 1,799,000 points.
- TIPS AND TRICKS -
* When driving a tank, try to avoid upgrading from cannonballs to missiles. Cannonballs explode as supergrenades, making it easier to hit gates and squadrons of men. Missiles, unfortunately, only take out one obstacle and will explode upon reaching their maximum range, which is rarely where you'd like the explosions to be.
* There are times when incoming missile triggers are impossible to avoid in the tank. A bug in the machine maximizes the number of explosions that can be onscreen at one time. When you MUST run over a trigger, fire off three shots rapidly timed to explode when the missile lands. With luck, the computer will be unable to generate the explosion and you and your tank can continue.
- SERIES -
1. Ikari Warriors (1986)
2. Victory Road (1986)
3. Ikari III - The Rescue (1989)
- PORTS -
* CONSOLES:
Nintendo Famicom (1986)
Atari 7800 (1989)
Atari 2600 (1990)
* COMPUTERS:
Commodore 16 (1987)
PC [Booter] (1987)
PC [MS-DOS, 5.25''] (198?)
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1988)
Commodore C64 (1988)
Amstrad CPC (1988)
Amstrad CPC (1989, "12 Top Amstrad Hits")
Commodore Amiga (1989)
Atari ST (1989)
MSX2
- CONTRIBUTE -
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