Elevator Action (NES) Playthrough

A playthrough of Taito's 1987 action game for the NES, Elevator Action.

In Elevator Action, you are the super-spy Otto, a secret agent that has been sent to infiltrate an enemy country's skyscraper and steal top secret documents.

Otto breaks in from the roof and must make his way down to the street level where his car is waiting, but along the way he'll have to duck into all the red doors to grab the papers as he tries to avoid being gunned down.

Elevators are a prominent feature of this building, of course, and in Elevator Action, they aren't just a convenient mode of conveyance - they're the ultimate weapon. Anyone that gets caught unaware in an elevator shaft is likely to find themselves being smashed into the floor or the ceiling. I like to imagine that their bodies are like tubes of toothpaste, and that once the pressure builds and the lid pops off, the uh... "contents" are violently ejected.

(Is that what Aerosmith had in mind when they wrote Love in an Elevator? Eww...)

Otto can also shoot the bad guys, jump on them, and drop light fixtures on their heads, but there's no question that the best part is crushing someone with an elevator.

After he has made his getaway, Otto appears at the top of a new thirty-story building to repeat the process at a higher difficulty level. The levels themselves don't change much beyond the color and the placement of a few walls, but the enemies ramp up in numbers and aggression pretty quickly - by the fourth round, they'll actively gang up on you, camp out in wait when you enter a red door, and fire a nonstop stream of bullets the instant they see you. It gets ridiculously hard ridiculously fast. (Giggity.)

I haven't played much of the original 1983 arcade game so I can't comment on how this version compares, but the stiff controls are exactly what you'd expect from a game of this vintage, and the simple gameplay loop is entertaining, though I do wish that the difficulty didn't become a brick wall after just a few rounds. I'd have been perfectly happy to continue playing for several more, if only the game had let me.

The graphics are functional but ugly, even for a 1987 NES release, and the music is plain and bloopy - some of the ditties actually sound like they're playing off an old piezoelectric PC speaker, but I do love the noise it makes when someone gets squashed.

Judging by the presentation, it probably won't surprise you that the NES port was already old when it came out in the US. The Famicom version dates back to 1985. What might surprise you is that it was developed by Micronics, and I say that because, well, the game is competently made. Yeah, who would've guessed? Most of their games were worth more as doorstops than as NES carts, but this one is decent. I'd go so far as to say that this is among the best they made, right up there with the likes of Hammerin' Harry.

So, all in all, Elevator Action on the NES is a decent way to play a classic arcade platformer from the early 80s. It doesn't have anything on Donkey Kong, Popeye, or Mario Bros., but it's a nice nostalgic throwback to a time when games were simple.

If you're a fan of Elevator Action, you should also check out the sequel, Elevator Action Returns (   • Elevator Action Returns (Saturn) Play...  ). It's a phenomenal 90s update to the formula that nobody should miss.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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