When I first saw this game, a number of similar shooters came to mind. Operation Wolf (no TAS available) is the most similar, since Mechanized Attack was likely meant to capitalize on that game’s arcade and critical success. Cabal (also no TAS available) is on the more entertaining side for the shooting gallery type of game. Unfortunately the closest TASes are
Gotcha! The Sport! and
Lethal Enforcers, both of which have very low entertainment ratings. Mechanized Attack is fairly low on entertainment as well, but on the positive side, the game doesn’t take too long and the stages have variety.
The shooting looks quick visually. Compare the tank fight (5:15 in the video) of this TAS with the real-time speedrun record, and it becomes obvious that the game is not trivial. For the final boss, I looked at alternating between shots and grenades in an attempt to avoid blank frames between each attack, but that idea is clearly slower. The input seems well-optimized.
Although the game was not a big seller nor particularly well-liked, the Vault exists for this type of game. It comes from a notable publisher (SNK) and is one of the few third-party NES Zapper games. It has a place in history worth documenting.
BRAAM! Another game completed for TASMania.