#73 - Battleship

This is what every child wanted to see come Christmas morning in 1993.

More than my battleship, you sunk... my heart.

The difference between a mediocre game like Battle Tank and a mediocre game like Battleship is Battle Tank was going for something. I'm not sure what that "something" was exactly, but there was definitely purpose and intent behind the game's release. Battleship, on the other hand, is a mindless money grab, and I type "mindless" with full confidence. Why would a company release Battleship in September 1993, when the NES is all but dead? I can understand wanting to make money off of a video board game, but timing is everything, right? And choosing a good board game is important, right?!!! They should have released this bad boy for the SNES or Genesis, or not at all. But yeah, it's a none-too-fun video game based on an impossibly boring board game.

We all remember the board game: you and a friend set up your different sized ships on a two separate "boards," labeled with numbers at the top and letters across the side. There are two parts to the board: on the bottom is where you place your ships, and the top is where you place your pegs for when you miss or hit your opponent's ships. Obviously, you are not allowed to see where your opponent puts their ships. You then shout out combinations like "B12!" and if your opponent's ship happens to be on B12, they take a hit. If not, keep trying. Rinse and repeat until you've wasted your whole artillery of ships. It really is as lame as my pitiful description makes it sound.

The video game is an almost exact replica of the board game. You aim a target over any number of blue squares (representing water, I suppose), fire your missile, and then the game zooms in on a targeted ship. Your missile will either hit it or fly right over it. The computer takes its turn, they almost always hit your ship, and you die a little inside. It's hard getting through one mission, but there's forty missions in the game. Think it might be tolerable playing with a friend? Too bad! There's no two-player mode, and as previously implied, the computer is a cheap, difficult, ugly mistress. There are a couple differences between the board game: Mindscape took out the numbers and letters. I guess they removed them to make it more realistic, but the game already fires on Geo Metro cylinders anyway, so I'm not sure why they bothered. Also, to add "depth" to the game, your different ships can fire missiles in varying patterns. For example, a battleship might be able to fire a 4X4 grid of missiles, whereas a little cruiser can only fire one missile. You have a limited number of these special extra attacks, so really make 'em count. Or, you know, turn off the game.

Perhaps it's my jaded gamer sensibilities taking hold, but out of all the board games developed into NES games, Battleship?! Really? If I could find something nice to write, it's that the music wasn't awful and the sound effects were appropriate. Now that that's off my chest, let's go back in time: in September 1993, I was playing Street Fighter II Turbo on the SNES, and looking forward to the release of Sonic CD. I needn't say more: Mindscape and Milton Bradley, in the annals of history, you lose.

F