Head On is an arcade game which was released by Gremlin Industries in 1979 (Irem also released a version on their M10 hardware in that same year); the player must use a single button to accelerate a car around a maze which contains 136 pellets, and a four-directional joystick to make it change lanes while trying to avoid crashing into various other (CPU-controlled) cars that are moving in the opposite direction a full year before Namco's signature character was even thought of. But if you do get forced to crash into one of the CPU-controlled cars you will have to start the maze over from the beginning - and this can get frustrating when there are three CPU-controlled cars on screen. Later in 1979, Sega (who had released this title in a dual-game cabinet with Data East's Alpha Fighter earlier in that year) released a sequel named Head On 2; it featured a new maze (which only contained 124 pellets), and areas in which you could make a complete revolution in order to reverse your direction and travel the same way as the CPU-controlled cars; Konami's Fast Lane (released eight years later), also features similar gameplay to this title but has a red sports car in the player role, two blue monster trucks in the enemy roles, and roller-blading women who the player can pick up as he passes them (the trucks will just pass through them) to gain powerups, along with a second button with which to use them against the monster trucks for a 1000-point bonus. It also features twenty-five different mazes (some of which are small, and some of which are big), but if you are lucky enough to finish the last one, the game will not end - because much like several other Konami games from that time period, it will just start again.
-
Upright arcade cabinet.
-
Alternative arcade flyer.
-
Screenshot of the game.
