Jungle Warfare with Ikari Warriors

This journey into the heart of darkness was one of my favourite all time arcade games. Ikari Warriors was an action packed slaughter fest as you took on an entire army in your attempt to reach the village of Ikari. You could play co-operatively or alone and it was a challenging and addictive title.

The game obviously drew inspiration from the Rambo films and the two main characters were commando types with bare muscular torsos and headbands. If you played co-operatively your characters were identical except one of you wore a red headband and the other blue. It also built on the success of the arcade game Commando which had come out the previous year in 1985. The action was similarly all about gunning and running and it unfolded as a vertical scrolling view down on the chaos.

The game was called Ikari in Japan which apparently means anger. The two commandoes were Paul and Vince and they were trying to rescue the unfortunate Colonel Cook from the village of Ikari deep in the jungle. The enemy soldiers were possibly meant to be neo-Nazis although I don’t remember it ever being stated.

The game-play in Ikari Warriors was excellent and the fact you could play co-operatively with a friend made this a very attractive prospect. There were loads of power ups to collect as you advanced up the screen wasting varied opponents. You would start with a pistol and grenades but you could pick up machine guns and red super grenades. You could also get powered up bullets allowing you to fire through things and you could even climb into tanks. When the tank was nearing destruction it would smoke giving you a warning to bale out. You could also run over enemy soldiers and squish them which was hugely satisfying. Fuel was limited so tanks would have to be abandoned eventually. Ammunition was also limited so you had to be constantly on the lookout for more pick ups. Other power ups included speed boosts, long range fire and kill everyone tokens which would clear the entire screen.

The enemies were plentiful and they were each armed with different guns, some took cover and fired, others would charge towards you to explode in your face kamikaze style. You also had to deal with various kinds of tanks and helicopters as well as gun turrets, bunkers and locked gates. There were also rock faces which were booby trapped with arrows and a variety of mines to avoid. This was a seriously deadly environment.

The arcade game was like one big continuous level. Although it was divided by a series of gates there was no break from the carnage and it was really tough to play all the way through. It came in a stand up cabinet with two sets of controls featuring an eight way rotary joystick and two buttons. It was a very popular game and one of the biggest hits that developer SNK ever had. It spawned a couple of sequels and was ported to everything in sight. You can check out the NES version in your internet browser at Nintendo 8.