Dig Dug was developed by Namco in 1982 and published by Atari in the United States in both stand up and cocktail versions. In Dig Dug you play as the title character who is a robot that can dig a path in the earth in four directions. He's armed with an air pump which he uses to inflate the enemies until they burst. The air pump has a limited range, as a hose shoots out into an enemy. You have to be close enough to them. The object is to clear the stages of enemies. You can do that by bursting all of them with the air pump, or you can smash them with rocks. You can dig a tunnel under a boulder and a few seconds later it will come loose and fall. If you time it correctly, it will crush the enemy. The enemies can also make a break for the surface and escape to end a round. That's all there is to it. Each section of dirt you clear is worth ten points. Killing enemies by bursting or crushing them will net you greater points. Letting them escape gets you nothing. As with almost everything in the era, it's about points, to get extra men, to get you further into the game, to get you the highest score. Dig Dug is famous for one little bit of programming. By this time there were people who could play Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man by pattern recognition to the end on one man. The Dig Dug programmers put in a nasty little surprise for those insane enough to reach level 256, where the game ran out of alternating patterns. Instead of looping the patterns, one of the enemies starts the level right next to you. No matter what you do, it will get you. This repeats for however many lives you might have. Ending the game.
Pole Position II was programmed by Namco and released in the United states by Atari in 1983. This really is the same game as Pole Position as far as game play and the differences in the stand up and sit down cabinets. Nothing at all has changed about the controls, graphics, sounds, or graphics. What they did do is add three more tracks. The included the returning Fuji Speedway and added the Test, Suzuki, and Seaside courses. The process of the game is the same as the original Pole Position. You start out by preparing to qualify by racing one lap. Again the other seven cars are already in play. Depending on your finishing time, you'll earn a position or game over. If you earned a position you'll get to start the race from a dead stop with theother drivers. Continually completing the course in time would earn extended play, allowing you to play forever if you were good enough. All of the same control issues that are present in Pole Position coming home are present in Pole Position II.
Mappy was published by Midway and released in 1983. Mappy is just weird. Get this. You're a mouse. A mouse who is a cop. You're in a house trying to recover stolen items. There are five feline cat-burglars chasing you around. The house is made up of several floors where stolen items are laying about for you to collect. Items like computers, paintings, safes, and radios. The house doesn't apparently have stairs. You have to use trampolines to bounce up to higher floors. There are doors to open and close to help you deal with the cats. Opening a door into an approaching cat will stun it, allowing you to bypass them. You have one other form of attack, microwave ovens. You can open a microwave and presumably cook the cats that are close enough. The whole point is to get points, for extra men, for the high score. Yes, that same cycle. The game can be fun and chaotic. It's a good little distraction. You won't spend a lot of time with it in my opinion. It's just too weird.
Sky Kid was published by Namco in the United States in 1985. Some issues with Midway brought them to the opinion of doing it themselves. Sky Kid is a side scrolling shooter. It's definitely Japanese in that regard as it scrolls right to left. In it you control a biplane on missions to bomb targets. You take off, fly through the zone, at the midway point you must collect the bomb, avoid the enemies to the target, and successfully bomb the primary target. You can move left and right within the forced scrolling to the left. You can also lower or gain elevation. You hold down-left to go lower and up-left to go higher. The plane tilts in said directions, allowing you to fire your machine guns at air and ground targets. You have a button to fire the machine gun. You have another button to loop the plane, as not only are you contending with enemies in front of you, but other planes coming behind you. Looping allows you to get behind the planes and shoot them down. Getting behind a plane doesn't stop it from looping and getting back behind you. So as you're dealing with planes in front of you and behind you and ground targets shooting at you, at one point you have to swoop down and pick up the bomb that will be on the ground. You then get to continue on to the target. You have another button to release the bomb. Same points for extra men cycle applies here. Sky Kid is a great variant on the Choplifter style gameplay of the same year.
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