SOS

SOS (エスオーエス Esu Ō Esu) is a fixed shooter arcade game that was released by Namco in 1979. It was the third and final monochromatic title that was released by the company in the early part of that year; the first two were Navarone and Kaitei Takara Sagashi (originally developed by K. K. Tokki).

The player must use a 2-way joystick to direct a fighter plane called a “Shinryaku” across the bottom of the screen, while enemy planes fly down towards it from the top of the screen; they can press the button to make the Shinryaku fire bullets from its nose at the enemy planes to destroy them for 10 points apiece. The Shinryaku can only fire one bullet at a time, and if it misses the player will have to wait for the bullet to go off the top of the screen before he can try again – and occasionally, a flashing arrow will appear, and point to either side of the screen while an “SOS” signal is being heard in Morse Code. If the player can manage to move the Shinryaku to that side of the screen before the “SOS” signal stops, he will receive 30 extra points, and the number of enemy planes that have bypassed it will decrease by 9 (but if the amount is under 9 at the time, it will have no effect); if the number of enemy planes that have bypassed the Shinryaku should ever amount to 100, the game will immediately be over, regardless of how many lives the player may have remaining.