Codebreaker

The Good
Guessing numbers is mildly entertaining for a short time.

The Bad
This game consists entirely of guessing or picking numbers and the numbers are pretty small. That equals early boredom.

The Bottom Line
This cartridge includes two games: Codebreaker and Nim. The first allows you to guess a 3 or 4 digit number consisting of numbers 1-6 or 1-9. The computer tells you how many numbers you have guessed correctly and how many are in the proper position. You have - curses - only a limited number of guesses before you have failed to solve the code and ... well I guess that's it, Atari provides an evocative box cover but no back story. In any event the settings are limited as is the challenge. Using simple logic you will quickly be guessing numbers regularly - good for you. The fact that you can play this in a two player version leaves me astounded - does Atari really think we can spend our days no better?

The second game is also a number puzzle, but slightly better dressed. In Nim, there are a set of stacks of objects. You and the computer take turns taking any number of objects from any one of the piles. Depending on the setting, selecting the last object makes you either a winner or a loser. It seems simple enough, but like the ancient Chinese game it is, there is some subtlety to the play. Alas, because of the limits of the Atari cartridge the subtlety lasts only a brief time and one can - using math - quickly learn to win nearly every game.

Not nearly a must have cart. Unless of course you're sharpening your skills for espionage or ancient Chinese wisdom-learning. In that case, this might be a nice remedial start.