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Tail Gunner II Tail Gunner II - Japanese Logo - Katakana / Kanji

Tail Gunner II - Cabinet - Video Game Marquee

Description

You are the Tailgunner of a large starship shooting at fighters closing in on the ship from the rear. The fighters can be blocked with the use of a shield. When ten fighters have passed, the game ends.

Tail Gunner II was produced by Exidy in 1980.

Exidy released 57 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1974. Exidy was based in United States.

Other machines made by Exidy during the time period Tail Gunner II was produced include: Kreepy Krawlers, Fire One!, Rip Cord, Side Trak, Crash, Spectar, Bandido, Targ, Star Fire, and Mouse Trap

Specs

Name Tail Gunner II
Developer Exidy (United States)
Year 1980
Type Videogame
KLOV/MOG # 10013
Class Wide Release
Genre Space
Monitor
  • Orientation: Horizontal
  • Type: Vector
  • Color: Black and White with a Color Overlay
  • The monitor has a blue overlay.

Conversion Class Cinematronics BW Vector
# Simultaneous Players 1
# Maximum Players 1
Game Play Single
Control Panel Layout Single Player
Controls
  • Joystick: Analog with one button - Fire
  • Buttons: 1 - Shield
Sound Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles
  • Environmental/Cockpit

Game Play

One difference between the cabinet Tail Gunner and the sitdown Tail Gunner II was the placement of the Fire button. On the cabinet model, the Fire and Shield buttons on the control panel were separate from the rather small joystick. On the TG II sitdown model, the Shield button remained separate and was positioned at the front of the arm rests so it could be pushed while the players arm was held loosely at his side. The Fire button was moved to the top of a much larger joystick positioned between the players thighs, a la a fighter aircraft cockpit. This probably seemed like a neat idea in development, but lead to my first encounters with carpal tunnel syndrome. Pushing the Fire button repeatedly with my right thumb led to cramps that lasted for hours if I played a marathon session.

Tail Gunner II KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 3.55 (5 votes)

Fun Factor: 3.54

Overall Like 4.50
Fun (Social) 0.25
Fun (Solo) 4.25
Collector Desire 4.50

Technical Rating: 4.23

Gameplay 4.75
Graphics 4.00
Originality 4.50
Sound/Music 2.50

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

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Images

Trivia

This game is basically Tail Gunner in a cockpit cabinet.

Cabinet Information

The sides of the cabinet show a large starship, very much like a Star Destroyer from Star Wars, with a gun turret in its belly. Three fighter ships are attacking the starship and one fighter is being shot at by lasers from the gun turret.

Miscellaneous

Although the vector hardware was originally designed by Cinematronics, this game, and several others based on the same vector hardware was created by VectorBeam. Vectorbeam was later purchased by Exidy and known as Exidy II.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Tail Gunner II Census

There are 15,220 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,649 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,619 machines (6,982 unique titles).

Uncommon - There are 20 known instances of this machine owned by Tail Gunner II collectors who are active members. Of these, 20 of them are original dedicated machines.

For Sale - There are 2 active VAPS members with a Tail Gunner II machines for sale.

Wanted - There are 5 active VAPS members currently looking for Tail Gunner II.

This game ranks a 4 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 10 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Legacy

  1. Tail Gunner
  2. Tail Gunner II

Manuals

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