Elevator Action is a classic platform/action game, first released into arcades in 1983 by Taito. The game was a critical and commercial success and has been converted to a wide range of home systems.

You play a secret agent (Agent 17; codename “Otto”), who is infiltrating various buildings, looking for secret documents that are hidden behind red doors.

You must make your way down through each building, avoiding enemy agents. Otto can duck, jump and shoot his gun. When you’re inside an elevator you can push up or down on the joystick to ascend or descend. You can also jump across an empty elevator shaft, but only if the elevator is above you (otherwise you’ll hit the cable and fall).

Otto can kill enemy agents by shooting them, jump-kicking them at close range, dropping a light fixture on their heads, or by crushing them with an elevator. In fact they’ll even do it themselves on occasion, for you.

After collecting all the available documents in a building you must finally make your way to the basement, where a car is waiting for your getaway. If you try to leave the building without having collected all the secret documents, you’ll be returned to the highest floor with a red door, and must then work your way back down again. If you take too long to clear a level an alarm will sound and the enemy agents will become more aggressive*, and the elevators will respond more slowly.

*= When enemies start laying on the ground, and then shooting at you, you know you’ve got a problem!

Elevator Action was very original for the time and was among the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1984, in America. And it still plays great today. You can feel the difficulty rising as you descend downward… The last ten levels of each building are always a major challenge to make it through.

A sequel, called Elevator Action Returns, was released into arcades and homes in 1994.

More: Elevator Action on Wikipedia