And here we are with what I consider to be the best of the initial Atari 2600 titles. This was the one that actually came with most 2600 consoles from the launch until The Shittiest But Also Best Selling Pac-Man took its place so for people who got in pre-Pac Man and Space Invaders boom this was probably the first Atari game they even touched. And Atari smartly made sure it made a good impression before people realized most the rest of the dross they could buy were math equations or hangman.
This also might be why Combat is going to be one of the rare times that the contemporary opinions were actually more muted than the modern consensus. At the time Combat didn’t get an outsized reaction, but as the years turned into decades this is one of the early games that people - myself included - still think has obvious value and stands out as a multiplayer title, and I fully agree.
Its actually a combo of a few popular Atari games, namely Tank and Jet Fighter, and unlike some of the other ports from these couple years it retains the vast majority of what made the arcade versions good. Because it borrows from a few different titles the different variations all actually feel unique instead of just an attempt for the marketing department to put a big number on the front of the box. I also have to give it credit for not even bothering with a half-assed single player mode and a terrible CPU opponent. This is multiplayer only bay bay, and for my totally-didn’t-keep-up-with-productivity-since-the-70s money its pretty close to being the gold standard of multiplayer shooters at least until after T H E C O L L A P S E happened and Japan took over the gaming industry for good.
This also might be why Combat is going to be one of the rare times that the contemporary opinions were actually more muted than the modern consensus. At the time Combat didn’t get an outsized reaction, but as the years turned into decades this is one of the early games that people - myself included - still think has obvious value and stands out as a multiplayer title, and I fully agree.
Its actually a combo of a few popular Atari games, namely Tank and Jet Fighter, and unlike some of the other ports from these couple years it retains the vast majority of what made the arcade versions good. Because it borrows from a few different titles the different variations all actually feel unique instead of just an attempt for the marketing department to put a big number on the front of the box. I also have to give it credit for not even bothering with a half-assed single player mode and a terrible CPU opponent. This is multiplayer only bay bay, and for my totally-didn’t-keep-up-with-productivity-since-the-70s money its pretty close to being the gold standard of multiplayer shooters at least until after T H E C O L L A P S E happened and Japan took over the gaming industry for good.