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This is a long shot. I saw this game around 1990 at an arcade in eastern Europe. The place had all western machines (e.g. Rampage, Gauntlet, Tron, Donkey Kong Jr, etc) so I believe it was also a western game but it could have been a hack or something home-brew.

Upright cabinet. I remember the graphics as early 80s, bitmap, monochrome yellow on black. Overhead perspective, single screen stages with no scrolling. Lots of enemies, something with bombs. Don't think it was Bomberman or Robotron but a little similar.

One thing I think I remember but could be making up is that there were simple animated cut scenes between stages. Bitmaps but line art in style. Your character takes an elevator between the stages. The animation I remember is a man in high collared coat and hat waiting for the door to open while a wisp of smoke rises off a singed spot on his hat.

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  • When you said "monochrome yellow on black", I was thinking something like Battlezone or Asteroids. I would never have guessed this game...
    – John Gordon
    Apr 8 at 21:24
  • @JohnGordon Yes, sorry, that was a monochrome yellow herring. It's been 30 years and that's how I remembered it but now I see the graphics, game play, and cabinet art and I'm certain this is it. Gun Fight was there too, must've got conflated.
    – aquaticapetheory
    Apr 8 at 21:53

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6

The actual game would have been Cloak & Dagger. Agent X was the original prototype, which was renamed and released as Cloak & Dagger to tie into the 1984 movie of the same name. It's probably the most prominently a video game has ever been featured in a movie, as the game (which in the movie was an Atari 5200 game / cartridge) would reveal secret stolen military plans when a score of 1,329,542 was reached. The game cartridge had an extra IC chip with the stolen data embedded into it.

The Atari 5200 version of the game was never released, and all the gameplay in the movie comes from a Cloak & Dagger arcade machine. In fact, in one of the scenes, when the game is supposedly being played on an Atari 5200, you can see the arcade cabinet in the background, and the video cable running from it (which was what was being displayed on the TV the Atari 5200 was supposed to be attached to).

Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1FZmH5EiLQ

A scene from the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB6Uj2RGhPU

Scene where Morris reaches the score, unlocks the secret plans and is killed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkfAyFT8xGc

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9

Think I found it: Agent X by Atari.

Here it is at the Museum of the Game: https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=12914

Not monochrome graphics but this looks like it. The cabinet art even looks familiar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH3znciPUo4

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