#14 Sonar Search, Fairchild '77 recap.
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Videocart #14: Sonar Search
This is a "port" of the real world game "Battleship". You have a blank blue playing field. You move a targeting reticle over the deep blue sea and sound a "ping" at a strategically chosen location. The length of the ensuing sound gives you a clue to how close an enemy ship is. Your opponent does the same on the same blue field, but he only detects your ships. There's no "cheating" by listening to what your opponent hears because their pings are bouncing off of a different group of ships. When you finally hit one, the field is marked and, like in Battleship, you have to start hitting around that strike to see which way the ship runs before you sink it. When you do sink it, its silhouette appears on the water like a grave marker.
In the one-player version, you are given a random amount of ammunition (between 68 and 94 shots) to find and sink the five enemy ships. It's okay, but not very exciting.
The graphics are really, really simple. Sparse, even, but they work well enough since the game itself is so simple.
The coolest thing about the game is the "ping" idea. Instead of just getting a simple "miss" you're given a range indication. It makes the game more "thinky" than "lucky".
We played this for a good 45 minutes, no lie. We did enjoy it. While this cart gets points for having a one-player version of the game, this one-player version just isn't as fun as the two-player version. I think it is because with one-player it's just you picking off the enemy. With two players, your enemy is also picking off your ships. It just has more of a thrill/competitive factor.
Fairchild VES 1977
That's it for 1977. The games numbered directly after #14 are copywritten with dates beyond 1977.
So, what didn't we hate?
Sonar Search
Baseball
Torpedo Alley/Robot War
Maze
Drag Race
Magic Numbers (Mind Reader and Nim)
Space War
Spitfire.
Nothing made us terribly sad or annoyed. I don't know if it is because of the quality of the games by themselves or because the closest comparison is to the RCA Studio II stuff.
Yeah, Fairchild might do really well with this system, I'm looking forward to see what comes out for it in 1978.
(*chortles* I'm pretending that I don't already know what happens to it. Shh! Don't spoil the surprise.)
We now approach October of 1977, not that anything exciting happens in that month. No, sir. Nothing to see here. Move along.
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