Front Line (video game)

Front Line[a] is a military-themed run and gun video game released by Taito for arcades in November 1982.

The single button is used to throw grenades and to enter and exit tanks, while the rotary dial aims and fires the player's gun.

Playing as a lone soldier, the player's ultimate objective is to lob a hand grenade into the enemy's fort, first by fighting off infantry units and then battling tanks before finally reaching the opponent's compound.

Once this is done, the tank will explode and an enemy soldier will wave a white flag, signalling surrender, plus 1,000 bonus points.

[13] Game Machine later listed Front Line on their June 1, 1983 issue as being the twentieth most-successful table arcade unit of the month.

[14] In the United Kingdom, the arcade game had limited commercial success due to its initially high difficulty.

Following its North American debut at the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show in November 1982, Video Games magazine published two reviews.

The award was given by Electronic Games, which stated that this "arcade approach to the dirty business of infantry combat forces the player to keep moving and firing constantly" and the "action is non-stop in this attractive shoot 'em up".

The Famicom version was released for the Virtual Console service in Japan in June 2007 for the Wii and January 2014 for the Nintendo 3DS.

The game was released for the Switch via the Nintendo eShop in February 2019 by Hamster Corporation as part of their Arcade Archives series.

The first portion of the Atari 2600 version