Elevator Action Returns Again

[Note to the administrator: This really belongs in an Arcade category. Maybe you should consider adding one?]

The Siliconera reports that Taito is making an Elevator Action sequel due out in Japan next summer in the spirit of the current revivals of their past franchises such as Space Invaders Extreme and Arkanoid DS, this time in the form of a light gun cabinet with working elevator doors that close over the screen. Elevator Action Death Parade features a button on the panel to open and close the door, presumably to engage and hide from the enemy in a botched Time Crisis kind of way. Little other information has been released at this time.

I don't know how this is supposed to work. The two original games were platformers about secret agents either retrieving enemy intelligence or disarming nuclear weapons in a variety of typical target or covert buildings by entering conspicuous red doors. How this is going to carry over in what appears to be a game all about shooting from a cramped elevator is anyone's guess, but it's still going to be interesting to see how it's going to work out. I've never played a Taito light gun game (did they actually ever go down that route?), but Elevator Action II (Elevator Action Returns outside North America) featured only three weapons: a pistol, a machine gun and a missile launcher. For their sake they better come up with better weaponry than that. The design of the cabinet also appears to preclude any tense in-elevator battles like in Crisis Zone, but whatever.

Also note that neither of the games before this one actually had conventional elevators like this cabinet simulates. They were more like lifts than anything else, really.