Armor Battle (Intellivision, 1980)
Entry posted by Mezrabad
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Armor Battle (Intellvision, 1980)
Don't get me wrong, I really love Atari's Combat; it will always hold a special place in my heart. However, Armor Battle immediately strikes me as being a "next generation" tank game: two tanks for each player, obstacles, variable terrain (road, water, woods, grass, buildings), mine laying capabilities, 240 different terrain maps, tanks that take multiple hits...jeez, the feature list goes on and on, doesn't it?
Each player has two tanks under their command, but may only control one at a time and must switch between them at the right moments. While you're controlling one tank, the other is a sleeping husk. Fortunately, the battlefield is littered with obstacles and terrain that will slow a tank down as well as limit the range of its shells. One move my son performed was to hide one tank behind some buildings (which shielded it from my fire) and immediately switch to his other tank to take advantage of my pursuing tank's exposed rear while his first tank was protected.
Another fun tactic available is the laying of an invisible mine. You can lead your enemy on a merry chase through a narrow pass while dropping a mine behind you. You only get one mine per round but it only takes one mine to rip through the soft underbelly of these tanks. When your tank is destroyed, either by a mine or by shots, its hulking wreck is left as an obstacle on the battlefield. Very cool. By the way, that mine is also invisible to you, so don't forget where you left it, or you may find it in the worst way.
The game automatically ends when one of the players has lost 50 tanks, so we're talking a minimum of 25 rounds if you do it that way. If you establish a limit to the number of rounds beforehand then the winner is the one with the most tanks left after the pre-determined limit.
One thing I appreciate about the game is the attempt to present the tanks in a pseudo-isometric perspective. Despite appreciating the effort, I think they look a little like the tanks I used to draw in grade school, only pixelated. I prefer the more pixelated but overhead view of the Atari Combat tanks, but this is a preference and not a comment on the artistic merits of either.
I feel the only drawback to Armor Battle would be the Intellivision controllers. Intellithumb took my son out before we could rack up too much time playing. Yes, he needs to learn not to press so hard, but I do my best not to over press and I still find my thumb getting sore after a little while. Another problem was that his controller would spontaneously switch tanks at inappropriate moments. Obviously, there's something wrong with my particular controllers and this isn't a problem with the game in itself. I'm using an INTV II so if I ever have the opportunity to switch out the controllers, I'll take it.
The only additional feature I would like to have seen in Armor Battle would be a limited ammo supply and maybe a reload station. Granted, the nature of the game is such that you want to make every shot count regardless of supply as a missed shot is a missed opportunity to hurt your enemy. Yet knowing you only have a few shots left can be pretty exciting and in my opinion would've added to the gameplay in this case. We saw limited ammo on Odyssey^2's tank game, and I really liked it there. Its absence in this tank battle is noticeable, but I feel I'm just being greedy.
I can see how Intellivision could be a strong threat to Atari's dominance in the minds of those who want deeper gameplay. I've only chronogamed three titles from the INTV library so far and I can already see that there's a "depth trend". Atari VCS games take a simple idea and provide as many variations on that idea as they can fit on a cart, (see Combat, Street Racer, Surround, Sky Diver, Canyon Bomber, etc). Intellivision games seem to take a simple idea (card games, racing, tank fights) and flesh it out with nuanced bells and whistles. I'm not saying this makes a given game necessarily "better" than a version on the Atari, just "deeper" and hinting at a potential for more immersive gameplay.
Next cart will be Major League Baseball. 19670
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