Looping is an old arcade game first released in 1982 by Venture Line.

In it you fly a plane across a horizontally-scrolling cityscape, doing loop-the-loops and trying your hardest not to hit the buildings.

You can shoot flying obstacles (such as balloons) and also strafe ground objects, which often open up routes going further into the game. For example: on the first level, shooting the ground-based Terminal will open up a door into a twisting pipe section, which you must then fly through to reach the end of the stage. An almost impossible task…

Looping is tricky to master, but fun to play, and is somewhat unique in its play style. You’re not given much room to manoeuvre, but you can press the ‘Fast’ button to make your turns tighter. That’s right: Looping is a two-button game, although the joystick really only uses up and down to control the plane.

A ColecoVision version of Looping came out in 1983 and is possibly better remembered than the arcade original, but – in truth – it’s not a patch on the arcade version, being much slower and more jerky on the movement (but maybe easier, in terms of difficulty).

More: Looping at arcade-museum.com