Road Champion was produced by Taito in 1978. Taito released 487 different machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1967.
Other machines made by Taito during the time period Road Champion was produced include Super Block, Trampoline, Acrobat, Super Speed Race V, Top Bowler, Cross Fire, Flying Fortress II, Barricade II, Fisco 400, and Cisco 400.
A timed car racing game where players try to race ahead of the opposing cars and cross the finish line first to become the winner.
Players must cooperate to drive the truck through traffic as far as possible without crashing. While the game can be played with one player, it was primarily designed for two. The front player steers the tractor of the truck sitting down, controlling the gas and brakes, while the rear player stands, and steers the tiller for the rear wheels, controlling the swing of the trailer. The cabinet also provides the players with bells and horns, although these have no use in the actual game.
Sprint is a series of overhead-view arcade racers released from 1976 to 1978. "Sprint 2" was the first in the series with the "2" reflecting the number of players, rather than indicating it as a sequel. Sprint 4 and Sprint 8, a 4 player and 8 player version respectively, were released in 1977. Both were full color raster versions of the game. The single player cabinet Sprint 1 was released in 1978.
Mine Sweeper is two player game. Each player controls a boat that can place mines. The game plays like a typical light-cycle game such as Blockade. The boats leave continuous trails of mines behind. Players can only turn at 90 degree angles. To win a player must last longer than your opponent before hitting the borders of the screen or a solid line of mines (first person to hit something loses). The game is over when a player has six points.
Shoot Away is a 1977 electro-mechanical (EM) light gun shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco. Players use the rifle-shaped light guns to fire at clay pigeons, represented as flying white dots on a projector screen. There are two that must be shot down in each round, and players only get two bullets to hit them. Bonus points are awarded for shooting the pigeons as soon as they appear, or by destroying both of them with a single bullet. The game was a critical and commercial success, maintaining a presence in arcades into the 1980s.
Developed by Exidy, Score is another extension of the Destruction Derby concept with the cars replaced by bar patrons. Set in a singles bar, the object of the game is to “score” with as many members of the opposite sex as possible. When the onscreen Lothario makes contact with the object of his (or her) affections, a heart appears on screen. A cocktail version of the game came in a heart-shaped cabinet.
A black and white arcade game released by Project Support Engineering in 1977. The arcade cabinet is notable for having a built-in bazooka gun that the player uses while playing the game.
Destroyer is a single player 1977 arcade game developed and published by Atari, Inc. The playfield displays your ship moving across the surface (displayed as a wavy line) and submarines moving across the screen. The target depth is set using a dial control (displayed as a dashed line). Depth charges are dropped by pushing the dial control. The speed of your ship is controlled using a speed lever control. Charges that miss make a low boom. Charges that hit make a louder boom and trigger an explosion sequence. Points are awarded for successful hits. The game is timed, so the goal is to sink or destroy as many submarines as possible before the time expires.
The player's Joystick Controller is both the clutch and gear shift for his Dragster, the red button is his gas pedal. The Activision-title Dragster is an unauthorized adaptation of the 1977 Kee Games coin-op, Drag Race.
Circus was one of the first games produced by Exidy that used a CPU (6502) to control the game logic instead of hand-crafted hard-coded logic circuits. It ran on a black & white monitor with a color overlay that gave each row of balloons at the top of the screen a different color. It was designed and programmed by Edward Valeau and Howell Ivey of Exidy in 1977.
Circus came in an upright dedicated cabinet, and may have also been available in a cocktail configuration as well. Circus machines had white sides with red painted sideart of several balloons in flight. The front of the machine was decorated with a large ornate monitor bezel that also doubled as a marquee (or nameplate). This bezel showed several clowns in a circus scene and had the game title spelled out with multicolored balloons. The control panel was unadorned, save for an analog spinner and a start button. The whole machine was finished off in black T-molding.
At least 13,000 units, possibly as many as 20,000, were produced.
Superbowl is an arcade game released by Sega in 1977. It is a reworked version of Robot Bowl, a 1977 arcade game by Exidy (licensed to Sega) which, despite its name, has nothing to do with American football but instead bowling. Super Bowl was released exclusively to a Japanese audience - other markets saw Exidy's original game.
Canyon Bomber is a black-and-white 1978 arcade game, developed and published by Atari. The game was rewritten in color and with a different visual style for the Atari 2600, also in 1978. The player and an opponent fly a blimp or biplane over a canyon full of numbered, circular rocks, arranged in layers. The player does not control the flight of vehicles, but only presses a button to drop bombs which destroy rocks and give points. Each rock is labeled with the points given for destroying it. As the number of rocks is reduced, it becomes harder to hit them without missing. The third time a player drops a bomb without hitting a rock, the game is over.