Combat

The Good
I can't believe some of the other reviews of this game. No music? Bad graphics? Unrealistic physics? Were you alive when this game came out? Which Star Wars is the real Star Wars trilogy?

Please let grandpa sort you out. This game is twenty years old, and needs to be judged in that context. Everything was state of the art, because nothing like that had ever been done before. "A game system.. in my own home? Right... and in the future I will have my own portable telephone that stores a thousand songs on it... " (Apple, there's your endorsement so give me swag!!)

Combat is the original deathmatch. This is the game that will have you cussing and swearing at your friends, so yes, Counterstrike is the spiritual heir to this game. To commemorate the importance of their humble roots at every Quakecon they should have a 32-player LAN set up for a ladder tourney of Atari 2600 Combat, replete with the tacky faux wood paneling seen in every basement of the early 80's. You got skillz? You got pwned!

It works because it is so simple. Teach granny how to hold the joystick, tell her which way is up and how to kill and you have a frag buddy. And because it was so easy, every one had a chance for success.. or at least believed they did.

As this was this first deathmatch, it also had the first cheap shots, or "campers". Once you shot up your best buddy, if he flew away from you in your direct sights, you can continue to frag him again and again and again. This was 1977: no respawning or health or weapon pick-ups. Kickin it old skool. Ah, to be so cruel to your friends... just thinking of it now I feel like I'm in my "Field of Dreams"...

And if my memory serves me correctly, there were many variations available. Atari went so far as to boldly proclaim there were 27 games on this humble cartridge. There's the tank game, the tank game where you can ricochets bullets off walls (I do believe this was an inspiration for the Wachowski siblings), invisible tank game, jets, biplanes, three jets against a bomber.. it beggars the imagination. Mods! Mods that shipped with the original game!

Please let me put this into perspective. Combat was one of the many Atari 2600 killer apps. You'd see this at Kmart and go, "Look at those astounding graphics! You mean I can control that yellow block and shoot smaller yellow blocks at my mortal enemy! To whom do I give my 599$? I don't want a PS3 anymore!" Okay, maybe not that last part, but people went gaga over this as they would for the later killer app, the terrible 2600 version of Pac-Man.

Truly revolutionary for its time. This has had a lasting effect upon games because folks, you've been playing essentially what is the very same game. Kill the other guy before he kills you. The fact that you do it now in 3D with amazing weapons and pixellated blood doesn't change the fact that this type of game is thirty years old. 30. Yikes. I am your grandfather.

The Bad
You say:

"No team death match. No capture the flag mode. No online play. No online chat. No weapon or health pick ups. No bump mapping or dynamic lighting. No customization of tattoos. No story, no voice acting, no cutscenes. Most importantly, you can't get out of your tank and carjack another tank."

...

Folks, this is old school gaming at its very finest. No, you couldn't do any of those things, and you know what? We liked it. We preferred it. We all hollered and yelled when the jump was made to 16-bit. "More colors? What do with all these colors? We don’t want better graphics, we want better game play! We want our games to be fun!”

Thirty years have passed, and have game developers listened? The game industry crashed once before at a time it was making money hand over fist. A series of bad decisions and a lofty sense of self-importance led to that crash.

There’s no reason why it can’t happen again. Bring back my eight-way one button controller.

The Bottom Line
A must-have for every Quake frag-head and Counter-Strike kill-joy only for you to see how little games have progressed over a long period of time.

The Good
It's the quick fix of violence that satisfies in COMBAT - no strategy, no negotiations, no resource mining and research trees. It's just you and the "FIRE" button on a blocky-abstract battlefield sent to put a hurtin' on that bastard in the other tank or airplane. There's nothing like lining up the enemy in your sights and knocking him spinning backwards, over and over and over again. The variety in settings helps keep it interesting past those first couple of matches, and the primitive mechanics lead to a few surprises of their own - how long did you laugh at your friend, curve-jerking bullets around the barriers into him, before you finally let him in on the secret?

The Bad
We're dealing with Pre-Cambrian technology here, so don't expect much presentational flair. Or music. Or color. And some of the multiple game modes you'll just skip on by. And they didn't exactly beta test this stuff, so if you don't have the constitution to be on the victimized end of some nail-pulling cheap tricks, stay away.

The Bottom Line
As pure and unadorned as its title, and user-friendly enough that anyone can pick it up and get a few minutes of fun even today.

The Good
The Combat cartridge, like most of the early VCS games, included many games, giving the players a wide variety of options to choose from. So even if the tank games seem a little boring at first, the "pong" and invisible variations give some twist to the combat. And soon enough, you feel that the delight of blasting the opponent's tank grows on you. Interesting feature, you can fly your aircraft from to one side and reappear at the other, for some surprise shooting at the enemy's tail.

The Bad
You always need a partner to play Combat, so make sure to keep some friends around (and let them win once in a while). But it would have been nice to have some variations for a single player. Aiming is a little awkward when you dispose only of 8 possible angles. However from a tactical point of view, this limitation may prove not so negative. Please note that the tanks were probably very light at some time in history, because I've seen mine fly across a whole field when it got hit by the enemy. The graphics are quite simplistic. No use of music is made during the game, but the sound effects do their job.

The Bottom Line
Simple, yet effective. The game requires a little exploration, but once you find suitable variations, and an interesting partner, you can play for hours once you've developed some tactics. Ain't bad considering how early it got published!

The Good
Fun game play. Enough variety to keep things interesting for awhile.

The Bad
Gotta have two players. Early Atari 2600 = rudimentary graphics, sound, action.

The Bottom Line
You know this game, it's the one that came with your 2600. It's real simple. You're one tank, biplane or jet and your friend is the other tank, biplane or jet - you try to kill each other. Whoever gets the most kills in 2 minutes and 16 seconds is the victor. A few variations are provided - different mazes for the tanks to work through, "guided" missiles, extra planes - but basically, you just try to shoot each other with whatever crudely drawn vehicle is on the screen.

And it's fun. The controls are simple and the gameplay easy to understand. The action isn't exactly high speed, but it's quick enough to keep you interested, especially if the two players are evenly matched. Switching from tanks to biplanes or jets provides a little variation in gameplay and a slight increase in game speed. The sound and graphics certainly won't blow you away and this game will probably not keep locked to your television for weeks, but Combat does provide a few hours of retro-fun.

The Good
Playing this game with a friend could yield hours of entertainment, as it is a shoot-'em-up at its most visceral. This ranks second only to Space Invaders as the best early 2600 game, and can be enjoyed even today.

The Bad
If you didn't have two players, it was a very dull game. The sound was primitive, even by the standards of the day, and there was no music.

The Bottom Line
This is a basic action shooter, Atari 2600 style, consisting of a pair of tanks, jet planes, or biplanes trying to shoot each other.