Be Excellent To Each Other

My dad has recently found this picture of me playing an arcade game in Wales back around 1985. The simple question is, can anyone name the game?

I thought it might have been road blasters or Spyhunter but according to a quick Google image search, it's not.

Any ideas?

Oooh! I recognise the dashboard!

Can't remember what it is though.

Great help, wasn't i?

Afterburner was mentioned by a friend but that came out in 1987 and the picture is 1985 (or there abouts)

The cabinet does look a bit afterburner-ish, but I think that only came in stand up and big rotate-y cabinet. Also I think you controlled it with a stick and a throttle.

The cabinet and the instrument panel do seem to suggest some sort of sky based shooter in an afterburner style, but that could be a huge artistic license.

Burnin' Rubber?

If this was an AMerican cop show, we could rotate and enhance the picture until it showed us what game was playing, and in the reflection you'd see who the murderer was as well.

Malc

Pole Position? Though I'd imagine that came with a full steering wheel. It does look a bit like Road Blasters from memory, but it also looks very similar to the cabs that Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back came in, except for the side decals. Did Return Of The Jedi ever come in a cabinet like that?

A quick google says it did! And it's very close to the one in my picture.. but I'm afraid it's not the one.

HELLO!

TheVision posts that picture of himself and nobody has yet mentioned the hair?!

What's wrong with you people today?

TheVision - you ARE Boris Johnson and I claim my £5.

Nice positioning of the cab-cloud, too, to give him a semblance of a Mekon-style massive melon.

Hee hee, TheVision looks a bit like the Little Prince!

I don't think that there's anything you lot can say that I haven't heard before.... As you can probably imagine, the hair is long gone.

I'll bet Stu knows. Come on Stu - delurk and give us a clue.

are you bald now?

Pfft, what a waste

The Vision of 2008

Zardoz! I actually LOL'ed to that... but not even close I'm afraid.. well, actually.. yeah, it was close about a year ago... but anyway, my hair is not the question here.

What arcade game is it?

It's not Buggy Boy is it? I'm just hazarding a guess.

Have you looked on Klov?

I'd have been tempted to say Roadblasters but the art on the cabinet and the shape of the wheel is wrong.

I think Road Blasters is too late as well. Could you not have got your dad to take a better photo where light isn't reflecting off all the useful surfaces.

I am not convinced it is a straight racing game. Given the shape of the wheel, and fire buttons, and the radar pictures, I am thinking a flight/spaceship game. Although the cloud art does look like Outrun.

My initial thought was Buck Rogers but i cant see the gear stick for slow / fast

clues :

Its a yolk instead of a steering wheel , plus two small fire buttons on the top
No gear change thats visible
Cant see if there are pedals but i doubt it
Behind the yolk is a LCD zero which could be score or time to play
There is some type of logo in the centre of the yolk and it either has an 8 or a B at the start

A Dizzy game, then?

Had a browse through arcade-history.com, narrowed it down by year but didn't find it. So far. Might be one of those obscurio games that's not really documented too well - and there are plenty of those, even with Mame having been round over a decade.

There's certainly something there but it's hard to tell if it's the game logo or just another bit of dashboard art.

I was wondering if it could be some kind of speedboat-type game but I can't actually think of any.

Hydra is too new, I can vaguely remember playing something in mame that might be around the right year, but I can't think for the life of me what it was called.

Edit - I was thinking of Tropical Angel, but I don't think that's the answer.

I poked around on Klov for hours last night trying to figure this out.

It's not Thunder Blade, that's too new (and the cabinet is minus a joystick)

It's not Spectar, as that's too old.

I looked at several others, but with no luck. Infuriating!

Had narrowed it down to Spy Hunter, basing in on the distinctive handlebars, and the fake speedometer and radar on the cabinet decals. It's not though, unless Spy Hunter cabinets sold in the UK/Europe had a different cabinet design which isn't documented online. (Oh, and it can't be Spy Hunter II, as that was two-player, with two vertical monitors played side-by-side in an upright cabinet.)

It's all about those distinctive handlebars... Find them and you'll have the game.

Rack your brains for any arcade Spy Hunter clones BTW, that might be the game we're looking for.

OK, it could be Crazy Rally or Action Fighter, more likely the latter, as they are Spy Hunter alikes which may have imitated Sky Hunter's handlebar controller. Unfortunately, I can't find photos of either arcade cabinet

Konami's Road Fighter I've ruled out, as the cabinet used a joystick rather than a handlebar.

I think there's big clues in the dash- the radar suggests planes (or possibly boats)... which the cabinet side-art backs up.
It also looks to have a functional LED speedo- if that gets feedback from the game then it's got to be pretty unique!

Could be APB, or ChaseHQ?

APB had a steering wheel as did Chase HQ I think. Also I reckon it's something much less advanced than it looks. Looking at the dashboard situation it's most likely something to do with flying. Could it be battlezone I wonder.. no that would have two joysticks.. No just can't seem to find it.

Street Fighter 3rd Strike. Got to be.