Swordfight - Atari 2600

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Two knights face each other at the edge of the universe. They slowly advance on each other, their laser swords tightly gripped as they prepare to fight to the death. Destroy your opponent before being destroyed yourself, no mercy, there can be only one!

Swordfight was finished at M Network in the 1980's, but never released. In 2000, Intellivision Productions released this game complete with a simple box and manual. Swordfight requires two players, which is possibly why the game was not released in the first place.

This release of Swordfight includes a full-color, M Network style manual created by Dale Crum.

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Swordfight BoxSwordfight Box

If you'd like a boxed copy of Swordfight, please select "Box Upgrade: Yes" at the top of the page before adding Swordfight to your cart. Our boxes are professionally printed and include a box insert to hold your Swordfight cartridge in place. We want you to play our games, so we have not sealed or shrinkwrapped the boxes in any way, allowing you easy access to the game cartridge and manual.

These boxes are the same size as boxes Atari produced for their games "back in the day". They look great sitting on a shelf with your other boxed homebrew games, or alongside games from the classic Atari 2600 library. We only have a limited number of boxes for each game, and there is no guarantee they will become available again once our supplies are exhausted. Click on the images to the right to see larger photos of the box.

Author Stephen Tatsumi
Number of Players 2
Controller Joystick
Cartridge Size 4K
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Nathan Strum on 07/11/2009 04:25am
An unreleased M-Network prototype, Swordfight (which requires two players) features two large figures on floating platforms, swinging "laser swords" at each other. Hit your opponent enough times, and you win. Simple enough.

If anything though, Swordfight is too simple. While it has decent graphics, the controls are under-utilized. While you can swing and block, you are limited to "left", "overhead", and "right". The problem is, you're looking at the characters from the side - so "left" and "right" are effectively wasted. Far better would have been "high", "middle", and "low" swings and blocks. The fire button is used to advance and retreat (which works well enough), but since the "left" and "right" attacks look pretty much the same and its difficult to predict how to block your opponent (since the motions are so limited), most of the time you'll just find yourself flailing wildly at your opponent until he dies (or you do).

Swordfight doesn't keep track of scores, so you can't play multiple rounds and keep track of who's ahead. The lack of a one-player option also severely limits the playability of the game. There's no way to really practice except with another player, and the lack of any progression (through different rounds or difficulty levels) really gives the whole thing a very unfinished feel. While the manual claims the game is indeed finished, Swordfight almost seems like a game engine in search of an idea, or maybe a particular movie license which had been locked up by another game company. With limited controls and no depth to speak of, the novelty of beating up your opponent with a light sab... I mean, "laser sword", wears off pretty quickly.

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