So, you want to be an ARCADE champion?

Playing rules: Difficulty: 5 (Normal). Start: 3 lives
Dip Switch Bank #1: 1-4 = OFF; 5-6 = OFF/UNUSED; 7-8 = ON [Upright, 1 player]; 7 = ON; 8 = OFF [Upright, 2 players]; 7-8 = OFF [Cocktail].
Dip Switch Bank #2: 1-4 = OFF; 5-8 = OFF/UNUSED

Current Record holders:
1st: 1,445.050 - Antonio Colangelo - 1985
erm...that's it

Only one record holder? From the 80′s? Crazy! Wonder what the story is there? I would imagine that this machine is REALLY hard to find these days, because it’s unusual that a machine only has a single record.

Quick check on www.klov.com tells me that i may be right:

“Very Rare – According to a survey conducted by Video Arcade Preservation Society of approximately 910 collectors and their 20,000+ games, there are no known instances of this game owned by a known collector”

I getcha.

Now, for any of you that have used MAME or indeed any sort of arcade emulator, you’ll know that having too much choice can actually be quite a bad thing. MAME itself has 5000+ games available, which is a really bewildering list whichever way you look at it. As a result you tend to stick to the good ol’ familiars, rarely dipping your toes into the thousands of unknowns.

So, chances are you have NEVER played Acrobatic Dogfight – i certainly have never heard of it. Being able to play it now is truly one of the bonuses with a quest such as this.

As with all of the games i’m unfamiliar with, i can only explain the rules and what have you from what i see when i give them a go and let me tell you, this baby is a treat. As soon as the game loads up you know that it’s going to be mental. You control a hillariously massive guy in a little Bi-plane thing, off on what appears to be a mission to get to the goal, waaaaay over to the right and fly over to the right is indeed what you do. It’s not all one direction mind you, moving about will allow you to loop back on yourself as well as change the height in which you fly. As well as this you have two buttons, shoot and speed up. Finally you notice the fuel guage to the left, suggesting that using the speed up button too much may not be the best idea. And that’s pretty much it from what i can see.

So, without any further ado, let’s give this little fella a fly! Pretty much as soon as you take off you are attacked by slightly smaller planes, although their attempts at shooting you down are pretty laughable. It’s bloody tricky to aim properly though due to the plane always facing in the direction you are moving; so if you move up, the plane also tips upward, as if it were beginning a loop, so shooting down the planes certainly isn’t as easy as you would like. So like any sensible person would do, i press the speed up button, only stopping when i see how fast the fuel guage is decreasing. Think i better lay off that button until i can work out how to refuel. Didn’t have to wait too long for that discovery though, as i manage to shoot down a plane and the fuel guage bumps up to nearly maximum. Right, so there is some sort of economy in force here where you have to juggle speed with shooting the odd thing, no problem.

It’s at that point that I’m killed by a giant pig hanging on to a propellor on a stick.

As you do. To be fair it wasn’t really a 1 shot kill, you see on my travels i had been hit already and the plane has been billowing smoke whilst making the plane wobble so much that shooting straight is quite a challenge, this pig had simply been the final nail in my coffin. A flying pig – not even in a bloody plane – It’s fair to say that all historical respect i had for this game was now out the window.

More worrying than all of that madness however, i had barely even begun to get near my goal, and my score after 1 life was only a thousand or so – not really challenging the 1 and a half million record then, looks like the 1985 record will be safe.

As with every other massively headed man in a plane out there, it takes more than that to stop me playing on – those pig bastards will feel my wrath!

Apart from the fact that they’re tricky little beggars, they really enjoy a-shooting that lot. They manage to almost kill me again before i bottle it and speed past them, fuel be buggered.

Ah, real planes again. Nicely done – ah but these are even trickier! They buzz about all over the place and it’s actually really hard to hit them. Bugger, out of fuel, damn you pigs for making me speed up!

Ok, last life and i do much better, hang on, fuck me – the pigs are back. At least this time they are in planes.

The joy is short lived when a pig jumps out of his plane, lands on my plane and blows us all up.

Ha! mental.

Score: 10,750

On my second go I notice that your large headed guy not only looks rather silly in his small plane, but he’s absolutely LOVING it. The little fella is pumping his fist and literally dancing with determined joy as he goes. Maybe if he took it a little more seriously we could get nearer the record.

Again i get to the pigs, and again they shoot me the buggers, so i zoom past them as i did last time. I find it a bit easier to shoot the planes now so fuel isn’t a problem this time, but the bloody jumping pigs get me again! I’m only about a quarter through the level if the progress meter is anything to go by and i just can’t get past the pigs! The difficulty is made all the harder by the fact that they sometimes leap out of their plane off screen and just suddenly appear above you, dragging you to your death. bastards!

Score: 13,650

Third go and i have to say, the death animation is really unnecessary. If your plane blowing up isn’t enough, you also slowly plummet to the ground where you splat in the road. I think what makes it that much more shocking is again the fact that the big headed lad is having SUCH a great time up until the point he finds himself falling to his death. Would it hurt to just let him fly about a bit? Damn you pigs!

New tactic this time, and it immediately makes a difference. Sod all that saving fuel business, live life to the max! The new plan is to speed as much as i can, til there is about half fuel left, and then shoot a few things to replenish, rinse and repeat – and it works a treat. I get past the first set of pigs and before i know it i’m at the jumping buggers. Ah! i see, the pigs are holding bombs, that’s why it kills you when they land on you. A bit harsh on the pigs though, as they die as well – in fact a few times i see the pigs miss me and then die as they hit the ground anyway. Loonies.

And then another big revelation! At the bottom left of the screen there are two indicators, one is obviously your life counter, but the other puzzled me. It’s pretty much a big “P” with a parachute attached to it and apparently i have two of them. Pressing the space bar provides the answer! When you use one of your “P’s” your mister leaps out of the plane, parachutes down to safety and then runs along the road a bit where he finds a new plane parked up and he sets off again. I assume this is some sort of avoid manoeuvre and it proves immediately useful.

I get past the pigs with only 1 life gone, and my technique is working well, even despite the next enemies being mine laying UFO’s (probably piloted by pigs no doubt). Eventually, i fall foul of some faster deadlier planes and it’s game over again. Much better score mind you.

Score: 39,500

All in all, what a great little gem! Not only is it absolutely mental, there are some suprisingly polished details that really add to the game. They may not be major, but things like planes accidentally crashing into the ground on their own and some of the more detailed animations really set this game apart from others from the same time period. The gameplay itself isn’t too exciting, but if you don’t at least giggle at some of the enemies and animations then you’re dead inside.

As for the record, that will really take some getting – the score really does rack up slowly – but if i ever find one of these machines on my travels i will definitely get a 2nd place effort recognised if i can.

Absolutely mental, but fun – i recommend you have a go!