Atari 2600 Friday’s #48 – Combat

Alright, the holidays are over. I guess I have to stop being lazy at some point and get back to these right? Well, this week the randomizer picked Combat, I guess we haven’t done this one yet, so let’s get to it. Combat actually shipped with the Atari Console, so it is extremely common.

The Story: There is no story for Combat, Just Military Warfare.

From the Manual: Nothing in the Manual

From the Box: Just a List of Game Modes -“Tank, Tank-Pong, Bi-Plane, Invisible Tank, and Jet”

The Gameplay: Combat is a Two-Player game. You work to defeat the opponent. In normal games the missiles fire in a straight line. In guided-missile games, you can curve your shots by using the left and right joystick commands. In ping pong games, shots ricochet off of walls. There is also an invisible mode where your tanks are only visible when they fire, get hit, or bump into walls.

The Controls: For the Tank and Jet Games – Joystick Up/Down/Left/Right/Diagonals for movement.

For Bi-Plane Games – Left for Decelerate, Right for Accelerate. Left Down for Slow Climb, Down for Medium Climb, Right Down for Fast Climb. Left Up for Slow Dive, Up for Medium Dive, Right Up for fast Dive.

All Games – Red button fires.

Post Review: You honestly can’t so much without another player. There is one biplane mode I believe that two players can face off against an AI, but otherwise without controller input, nothing will move. It gets boring in seconds playing against opponents that don’t move or fight back. Do yourself a favor, grab a friend and try out combat. The Atari 2600 is one of the great consoles to have a little split-screen fun for the variety of games it has.