Let's talk COMBAT

[Mind Master]

...It's the game EVERYBODY has and that until recently we all took for granted.

 

I'd like to hear some COMBAT stories of great battles with relatives and friends, and COMBAT strategies for victory - particularly the tank battle variations.

 

COMBAT ROCKS!

[Room 34]

I HATED Combat as a kid. Why? Because I never had anyone else to play it with!

 

I brought my 2600 with me to college in the early '90s, and that was when I began to appreciate Combat.

 

My favorite variation to play was the one with ricochet bullets and the most-complicated maze. Invisible tanks was good too.

 

I personally really like the "glitches" of the game... the way your tank sometimes jumps around a barrier, or, even best, gets blown to the opposite side of the screen when you're hit.

[maibock]

Yeah, we played this game a LOT. We new pretty much all of the "time warp" areas and how to exploit them. To us they were just part of the game. Still a great game.

[moycon]

I was forced to play it because, it was the only game we had for about a week until we got Breakout.

Combat never really got me excited, probably because I was an only child and the game wasn't much fun to play by yourself.

 

moycons mom: "what are you doing son?"

 

moycon: "Playing with myself."

 

moycons mom: "WHA WHA WHAT!!!!"

[Inky]

Let's talk about combat baby!

Let's talk about you and me!

[Mind Master]

I've heard there's a 2 player version of Combat in the works.

[Mind Master]

I've heard there's a 2 player version of Combat in the works.

 

oops - I mean a one player version...

[Spector]

A one-player version? Wher did you hear that? I remember someone bringing that idea up in an old topic last year, and someone else replied saying it would be extremely difficult to get a good AI in the game. I'm not so sure, as "Surround" was a tough one player game and it only had 2K. Maybe with 4K it could be possible; I wish someone would have a go anyway.

[Clock]

If they could make chess work on a 1k zx81, then combat AI should be easy in 2k.

 

And I bought my VCS recently because of Combat... Its the one 2600 game that stuck in my head all these years, so I had to get one.

[SS]

I always kicked my sister's ass with the bouncing bullets in the tank game. She was always really bad a geometry. 'Course, she was always really bad at Atari too.

[Rob Mitchell]

Combat is the quintisential video game .. You versus a friend in a battle to the end!

 

Imagine being in the Roman Colloseum and the Emporer calls for the Combat to begin .. You and your enemy begin maneuvering to strike against eachother .. The loser gets executed. The crowd cheers as each strike is made .. Occasionally you get blown over an obstacle .. or to the other side of the floor. After 2:15 minutes .. the contest is over .. and the Victor celebrates and the loser is lead off the floor to the gallows!

 

Combat is like that ...

 

Too bad the tanks cannot back-up .. but that makes for an advantage if your enemy tries to turn around and flee ...

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Bivotar]

Don't forget Combat has lots more than just the tanks! I loved the aerial combat games, especially the jets. You could have the option of having the clouds, duck behind a cloud, slow waaay down, make a quick turn, and totally fake out your opponent.

 

I have many fond memories of playing Combat with the bro "back in the day".

[Room 34]

My favorite game with the planes is where one person operates the 3 sleek, small planes and the other controls the lame tubbo huge plane.

[liveinabin]

..but that's only fun if you're the 3 smaller planes:)

 

Combat was the first game I had on my 2600, but that wasn't that long ago - 1997! There wasn't much of a console culture in UK in the 70s/80s - we all had computers. Even as late as 97 though, all my mates fell in love with it, it's just SO simple. It just gives you the weapon, the ability to move it and you can pretty much make up your own rules! Duelling with tanks is fun (back to back, 10 paces and fire!).

[Giga Power]

Combat is one of the games that I think about whenever someone brings up the 2600. A friend and I both had a copy, and we were actually really good. So we would practice at home, and then try to see who was "King" whenever he would come down, or I would go there.

"Good times"

[gulag picture radio]

My folks had me really late, so when I was a boy playing Atari, my father was in his 70's. As a result, we didn't get along too well since we didn't have much in common, and stubborn old Czech men aren't known to warm to new ideas like videogames.

 

When I got my Atari, he was somewhat interested in it and it was one of the very few things that we could do together. He liked Combat a lot, especially when one of us got blown through a wall spinning. He had a characteristic laugh that we heard seldom, but that happened a lot during Combat.

 

BTW old Czech men also like Video Olympics, and think that Video Pinball is not too bad... especially at .88 each at Zayre.

[Video]

I love combat. It's a lot funner with friends. But it's playable one playered. I'd drive to the center of the screen, shoot the other tank, and see how many times I could hit it befor time ran out, oddly, 23 times is average for me.

 

The planes were cool one or two playered also, because the objects were always moving, that added a lot of complexity to the shoot the no AI enemie lots of times.

 

One of the more amusing things I found that could be done with combat that was odd, you can drive the tanks up to each other, slightly offset nose to nose, and turn one towards the other, and it will blow both tanks up. That was always funny for no real reason to me.

[Witchfynde]

Don't forget Combat has lots more than just the tanks!  I loved the aerial combat games, especially the jets.  You could have the option of having the clouds, duck behind a cloud, slow waaay down, make a quick turn, and totally fake out your opponent.  

 

Yep, gotta love them clouds...

 

I like the jets the most, since they're fast...two jets onscreen's my fave...