Gunblade NY: Special Air Assault Force

Gunblade NY: Special Air Assault Force is a rail-shooter arcade game developed by Sega and released in 1995 in North America and 1996 world wide.

Plot
A group of highly advanced and humanoid looking robotic terrorists are attacking the city of New York and have laid siege to the UN H.Q. Police, heavily outgunned call in to the special air assault force to help them regain the UN and finally the Big Apple itself.

Gameplay
Players start with three hearts a piece and a reticle on screen each. The camera swoops around wildly as the robotic terrorists attempt to leap out of the way and fire rockets at the helicopter your armed forces are on.

Unlike many arcade rail-shooter titles, Gunblade NY: Special Air Assault gives it's players unlimited ammunition allowing them to shoot at all times without fear of running out of ammo.

The enemies themselves are very humanoid in nature, but explode when shot down showcasing their true robotic nature. The robots are surprisingly acrobatic and light on their feet being capable of dodging rapid fire shots until they are eventually overwhelmed.

As the level progresses players will engage in fire fights with more advanced enemies such as jet pack wearing terrorists, tanks, or on terrorists on the back of motorcycles before facing off with the boss of the level which can be anything from a fellow assault helicopter, to a missile carrier, to a mounted machine gun soldier to even a rocket firing mecha.

The results are based on the amount of enemies dispatched by each player rather than a score based on time or accuracy.

The mounted gun controllers on the arcade cabinet have a slight kickback to each shot resulting in the machinegun fire giving a realistic vibrating feel as it's fired.

trivia

 * This game also contains destructible elements such as taxis, trees and trucks.
 * It and it's sequel, L.A. Machineguns: Rage Of The Machines, were re-released together on the Wii as part of an arcade hits collection entitled Arcade Hits Pack: Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns: Rage of the Machines.