The Battle-Road - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 40 years ago:

The Battle-Road © 1984 Irem.

TECHNICAL
Irem M-62 system hardware

Main CPU: Zilog Z80 (@ 3.072 Mhz)
Sound CPU: Motorola M6803 (@ 894.886 Khz)
Sound Chips: (2x) General Instrument AY8910 (@ 894.886 Khz), (2x) MSM5205 (@ 384 Khz)

Screen orientation: square screen
Screen resolution: 256x256 (pixels)

Players: up to 2 (alternating turns)
Control: 8-way joystick
Buttons: 2
[A] = FIRE FORWARD, [B] = SHOOT SIDE BULLETS

TRIVIA
Released in October 1984 in Japan.

The Battle-Road is a response to Midway's "Spy Hunter [Model A27]", released in November 1983, although the car can't be transformed into a boat. There are no oil slicks or smoke screens. The rockets are fired only by an NPC helicopter.

'Crash' is misspelled as 'Clash' (error shown after a stage).

The high score supports up to 8 letters.

TIPS AND TRICKS

• You can shoot the turrets at farm stages, but the bullets will be fired even if you're relatively far from the cannons.
• You can run the pedestrians throwing grenades down (town stages), but this leads to quick fuel depletion. Don't hit the moving balls either.
• The guards hidden behind the wooden barricades at 'forest 3' stage are unarmed, so you don't need to run them down.
• The helicopter drops rockets, a hit causes game over.
• Don't hit the fallen rocks at valley stages. The tunnel doesn't protect either from rockets or fallen rocks.
• Watch out at stage 'waste 2': the suicide terrorist is driving fast and will climb to the car with a rope; you actually can't evade him, leading to a game over.
• Drive slowly at 'waste 1' stage not to hit any mine and to react fast when you see one. A hit causes explosion and leads to a game over.
• Don't collect points at forest stages: they don't give fuel or extra life.
• The game is over in the following ways: no fuel, loss of all 4 wheels and aforementioned suicide terrorist blow up (seen at 'waste 2' stage), rocket explosion (valley stages), hit mine ('waste 1' stage).

CONTRIBUTE
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