Game dossier

Front Line

Available nowDecember 31, 1981

An upward-scrolling battlefield shooter with infantry combat, tanks, grenades, and fortified enemy positions.

The briefing

About this game

Front Line is a vertical shoot-'em-up centered on advancing through enemy battlefields on foot and in tanks. Use bullets and grenades against enemy soldiers, avoid land mines and rocks, and capture tanks to gain additional firepower.

Tanks come in large and small types: large tanks can destroy either size, while small tanks can only defeat other small tanks. A damaged tank can be abandoned after one hit, but a second hit is fatal. At the top of the battlefield, players must leave their tank if necessary and throw a grenade onto the enemy fortress while avoiding its cannon.

Destroying the fortress causes the enemy army to surrender, awards a bonus, and restarts the game at a higher difficulty. The game was released in 1981 and is associated with action, arcade, shooter, walking shooter, and strategy genres.