Elevator Action

Elevator Action is Taito's 1983 spy sandbox: agent Quarter (or Blue, in 2P) infiltrates a tower of apartment buildings, collects secret documents glowing in every lobby, and escapes to the car at street level - all while riding elevators and escalators patrolled by enemy agents.

The elevators are the game. You shoot from the top of a moving cab, drop from the ceiling hatch onto an enemy below, squash them between cab and floor, and reverse direction at the last second to change a firefight entirely - verticality in 1983 was usually a ladder, and here it is a moving puzzle piece. Lights-out zones add a stealth garnish: in darkened rooms your gun becomes a silent blade and enemies lose their aim, so cutting the power to a floor and slipping through is a legitimate route. It is a game of small clever systems stacked on a simple goal list, and it plays wonderfully still, especially with two players alternating floors of the same building.

• ▸Elevators as weapons: squash enemies, shoot from cab tops, drop through hatches
• ▸Lights-out stealth rooms where your gun silences and enemies blunder
• ▸Document-collecting objective structure before the exit car
• ▸Genuine 2-player alternating play on shared building layouts