Ikari Warriors - Overview

Overview

The player takes the role of commando-like warriors named Ralf and Clark, who must try to reach the village of Ikari. Enemy units attempting to kill the player include tanks, enemy soldiers and helicopters. A number of power-ups along the way help the player to achieve victory.

Ikari Warriors was the first popular video game to use rotary joysticks: those which could be rotated in addition to being pushed in eight directions (TNK III, released in 1985, also from SNK, was the first to use such joysticks). The game also featured two buttons, one for the standard gun and another for lobbing grenades. It allowed two players to play cooperatively, side-by-side — one of the few games to do so at the time — and to use vehicles. The game cabinet was a standard upright. Stan Szczepanski holds the official Guinness World Record with 1,799,000 points.