Games of the Abstract: Elevator Action Invasion (2021)

 

Developer: UNIS Technology

Publisher: UNIS Technology

One or Two Players

Arcade

 

Invasion is an odd work to cover, as it is explicitly a member of the Elevator Action franchise, an obscure Taito franchise that, for the layman in an arcade at the British seaside seeing this new machine, will view it as a swanky light gun game, but is a spin-off loaded in that title from the franchise itself. Beginning in 1983, the first Elevator Action was in an entirely different genre, a 2D platform shooter where as a spy you traverse between elevators onscreen shooting baddies and collecting items before you escaped. Most will known this franchise through Elevator Action Returns (1994), an incredible nineties arcade game which is the one people view Elevator Action as a franchise through for good reason. Taking elevens years to exist, it has had various ways to access it legally – importing the Japanese Sega Saturn version, buying the Playstation 2/Xbox/PC versions of the Taito Legends 2 collection, buying the Taito Egret II mini arcade cabinet released in 2022, or City Connection bringing an update on the Saturn version, Elevator Action™ -Returns- S-Tribute, to every console and even Steam in 2022 – and it is an exceptional game. A spectacular update of an eighties game, it shows nineties sprite animation is its own unique aesthetic we have yet to get indie developers replicating yet, all set around an easy to grasp arcade gaming structure, one however difficult to master, and changed the plot instead to the Japanese developers looking at cheesy American action films and reinterpreting it through exaggeration.

After this, sadly we never got many Elevator Action games. There is a GameBoy Color game, Elevator Action EX (2000), and Elevator Action Old & New (2004) for the GameBoy Advance, which befits as a way to continue the 2D games for handheld consoles where those would be appreciated. The rumor mill, i.e. speculated by a site I have always admired, Bad Games Hall of Fame, and with some credible idea to it is that an infamous Nintendo Wii light gun game called Spy Games: Elevator Mission (2007), released only in the United States, was meant to be a follow up, but with the obvious issue that Square Enix acquired Taito and the associated license in 2005-6¹. Considering that game, about a spy traversing a series of corridors and rooms in a tower block, with the goal to collect a certain number of items, was developed by Dreams Co., Ltd., founded by ex-Taito designer [and father of Space Invaders] Tomohiro Nishikado in 1997, there is credibility to the idea.

This decision to take the series into lightgun games finally came when Elevator Action: Death Parade (2009), a Taito production for arcades, and Elevator Action Invasion, which is produced by UNIS Technology, a Chinese based manufacturer of amusement machines who started in 1993, their machines ones I have found frequently in British sea sides showing how far they have come. They specialize in all arcade machines, not just games like Invasion, ranging their work from air hockey tables to a tie-in game to Wicked Tuna, a reality television show starting in 2012 about commercial tuna fishermen which, yes, is a four player/two player tuna fishing game which you can win tickets on. The decision to change to the light gun genre is sad in some ways but a) some will rightly argue that you cannot top Elevator Action Returns, b) sadly two dimensional shooters are not something you find in arcades unless you could win tickets on them, and c) sadly beyond the Game Boy games, an attempt to continue the franchise on a home console would have been a push to three dimensional games and I cannot comprehend a 3D sequel, likely a third person shooter or stealth based game, which could come off well. Elevator Action Deluxe (2011), which was released for the Playstation Network, was an attempt at a 3D version of the franchise’s trademarks, but still with a 2D perspective, and even if I could enjoy it, it was clearly a budget release, now that the game as a license is for a niche audience.

If Spy Games: Elevator Mission was actually meant to be a tie-in, it existed at a time when the Wii (and Playstation 3’s Move motion controls) allowed a brief flourish of lightgun games new and old to be ported around, and Invasion exists because, even if the lightgun game is not popular for consoles and ticket winning machines exist in most arcades, things that still draws interest thankfully are to be able to drive a car and use a plastic gun. Sadly Invasion is a really standard game for the lightgun genre, and feels either rushed or stripped down to the bone in content. Game play wise, this is solid and follows the tropes of other lightgun game, but it is lacking something. Its biggest gimmick is the arcade machine itself, specifically the full Elevator Action Invasion DLX version, and it is honestly not that spectacular; enclosed in its own chamber, the premise of having to go down and up elevators from the first games is replicated by a pair of fake elevator doors which, per level and stage, close around the arcade cabinet’s vertical screen. It is nifty, but when Dark Escape 4D (2012) exists, a lightgun game with vibrating seats, a heart monitor and is made with enough horror gimmicks to make a carnival barker of yore want to approve it from beyond the grave, two plastic elevator doors really is not a lot baring a nice aesthetic touch which does not add to the game play itself. Even Time Crisis 4 (2006), an old game in comparison by now, has a simpler mechanic of a pedal on the ground, from early games, that at least adds a game mechanic of ducking fire (and changing weapons), whilst this is just an on-rails shooters whose seemingly free choice of levels really is what order to complete them in.

The story and style is another issue as, even if arcade games have paper thin stories most of the time, this one does not even have an antagonist onscreen to mock the players and become the final level boss. Elevator Action Return admittedly did not have much – a trio of heroes, one female and one a blonde sunglasses man, against a stereotypical group of villains – but there were some distinct set pieces and it ended with having to stop a missile being fired, with the possibility of the bad ending happening if the time limit ended for that final level. This still has a style, taking a bright toy box tone to the lightgun shooter of colorful figures, a cartoonish style, and an emphasis here on robots and cyborgs being the main enemies, alongside an inordinate amount of grunts throwing fire axes at the players as others throw the usual grenades. The emphasis on robots and machines is at least a style, a sci-fi bent, contrasted by a generic male hero and the second player female character, the later of which is distinct because you still can be cute in a gunfight with combat issue wooly hat with a cartoon logo on its side, and combat standard woolen jumper. Again, lightgun games can be very generic, but considering even House of the Dead by part 4, in 2005, is weaving back to the past games’ lore and even making the “too old for this shit” joke for its returning male lead in your high score per the end of each level, personality can be found in alternative methods to a lengthy narrative you do not have the practical time for.

An antagonist to centre this around for a final boss battle does not even exist for Invasion, no figure to represent generic megalomania, but an ending beating a robot scorpion and matter-of-factly walking away from its destruction which feels anti-climatic. It is a spectacle cabinet without a lot of artistic flourishes you would wish to have, even if surface dressing, something sadly I have come to see with a few modern machines. Some concessions are to be appreciated, as this has no reload for the machine gun lightguns, entirely about firing and the issue more than, without two players, you have a disadvantage keeping on top on all the grunts and incoming projectiles unless you started dual welding the arcade cabinet guns. The lack of fun with a silly story however, or any distinct set pieces, is itself the issue, lacking fun when even something I have bagged on like Razing Storm (2008) now seems more appreciable for me even for the macho melodrama and Five Finger Death Punch songs. This as a result becomes a frankly generic game, which is sad as none of the issues are with the game mechanics, simply that a single coat of personality would have been enough.

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1) Bad Game Hall of Fame’s article on Spy Games: Elevator Mission, written by Cassidy and published on December 29th 2017.