Thunder Ceptor & 3D Thunder Ceptor II, 1986 Namco
193D sprite-scaling futuristic game where you race your spaceship to the end of a course, and try to avoid smashing into obstacles while shooting enemies. The collision detection can seem all over the place at times-- you can fly right through an object at one instance and perhaps barely clip an object by a pixel and blow up. You REALLY need to lay on the speed, or you won't make it to the end (just flying takes up some power, and to a greater extent, so does crashing). Your laser cannon will take out most enemies with relative ease, but the boss fights (of which there will be multiple for each stage) require a lot more. Since time is not in your favor you have bombs that can end a boss fight quickly if you fire it directly at the boss (they do NOT wanna stand still!). Reach a far enough distance and you complete the stage, of which there are 4. Between stages you get bonus points for the various enemies you destroyed and also get bombs and energy restored. The video also takes a gander at the sequel, 3D Thunder Ceptor II, which was released later the same year. This I like a bit better-- you have a double screen that shows the same action but with the left/right movement reversed from the other screen. This didn't translate well in MAME so I didn't do a full gameplay of the sequel, though it is very similar to the first. Some differences: the hit detection feels a little more normal here, and there are cameos from XEVIOUS characters (like the tumbling door things and the 3D stick enemies-- can't remember which Xevious game they were from). You also sometimes can choose a different path. Otherwise the games play the same. Suggested by YouTube user NamcotEnterprises.