Can you name this game?

[gravity242]

Hello,

Perhaps you can help me identify an arcade game.  What follows is a lame description of what I can remember about it:

I

[KungFuJoe]

Sounds like a Metal Slug game....

[MaximRecoil]

Ikari III shows the characters waist-deep in water during the attract mode, but it is an overhead view game which scrolls more up and down than side to side.

Battle Rangers shows the characters waist deep in water during the attract mode as well, but I didn't notice any flame thrower.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[MajorHavoc]

Nam 75? 

Have you checked out KLOV.com?
you might see a title there that jogs the memory.

[Thenasty]

Gryzor/Contra ?

[gravity242]

Wow, so many responses so quickly!  Thanks fellas, I really appreciate the effort.

Based on my poor description, it does sound like a Metal Slug game... but it wasn't animated as well and the character sprites were larger.  The character sprites were about the size of characters in Thunder Fox, seen here:


They had about the same quality of animation as in Thunder Fox too--not terrible, but not incredible. I'm quite certain this wasn't a NeoGeo game at all.  I should have said that up-front.  My apologies. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't Contra or Battle Rangers either, although those match my bad description as well.  You guys are sharp.  The graphics were a bit more detailed, such as in Thunder Fox (above).

I would say the closest match so far is Ikari III:



However, this was a side scroller with some depth to the playfield.  Much like, say, X-Men when the screen scrolls left to right. 

I was thinking about it and I also remember in the attract mode play, after the players advance to the shoreline, they inflict some type of large explosion on the enemy which nearly fills the screen for an instant with red and yellow.  Shortly after that the attract mode cycles back to the title screen or highscore table.  I know... that probably doesn't help much.

Thank you all again for taking the time to reply.

[Silver]

Shock Troopers?

Is a Neogeo though. Maybe too much depth to that playfield...

When you say military theme - do you mean its all soldiers etc as that does narrow it down....

[gravity242]

Shock Troopers is an excellent guess, but the game I'm thinking of was quite a bit older and not NeoGeo.  Thanks for the suggestion however.   

It had a "miliary/special forces" theme for certain.  If I was describing it on KLOV, I would term it a "horizontally scrolling commando-style fighting game".   If only there was a way to sort MAME titles by THAT category.     The KLOV searching leaves a bit to be desired too.

[RayB]

The way you describe it it sounds like Mercs! hahaha

Is it Midnight Resistance?
Thunder Fox?

[gravity242]

Unfortunately, it's not Mercs.  It scrolls differently and doesn't have a top down view.

It's also not Thunder Fox or Midnight Resistance--there's a bit more depth to the playfield than in either of those games .  (along the lines of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or X-men)

Thanks for trying though.  You guys are totally on the right track with all of the suggestions.  What a incredible resource this forum is. 

I wish I could somehow get a list of every side-scrolling war game from 1989-1992.  There can't be that many of them out there...   

[RayB]

In KLOV, if you use the advanced search, and enter a keyword like "soldier" or "army", etc and then check the "search game descriptions" you'll get quite a few results.

[gravity242]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.