SOFTWARE REVIEW - War at Sea

Custom Electronics, Inc.
238 Exchange Street
Chicopee, Mass. 01013

$14-95 for cassette/16K; $19.95 for diskette/24K

A popular game based on Milton Bradley's 'Battleship', War at Sea by Jerry White is one of the neatest games for the ATARI I have seen (He may not think so, but I think it's the BEST game he's written!). The object of the game is to sink your opponent's (the computer's) fleet, which consists of a battleship, cruiser, destroyer, and a sub. You start out by positioning your fleet horizontally and/or vertically on a 10 x 10 sector grid on the screen. You then select from an easy or difficult level, the difference being the amount of logic the ATARI uses; how smart it plays. Following this initialization, you can use the joystick to position your cursor (ship) over a sector, and hit the button to 'launch' your torpedos! You aren't notified of a hit until your round is over .

To see a hit, you check the 'warbook', a diagram of each ship on the right edge of the screen. A hit on a destroyer in the first round would appear as a "1" on the image of that ship. If you strike it on the third round, a "3' would then appear following the "1". Using this numbering system, you must deduct where a specific ship is located. Since you don't know if a ship has been hit until after a round, this is trickier than it sounds, as you may have 14 or more shots in a round! To sink a sub takes 2 hits - this vessel is the most troublesome to find. A destroyer needs 3 hits, a cruiser 4, and a battleship 5.

Sound being one of Jerry White's specialities, this game uses this ability to a large extent. The first few notes of "Anchor's Aweigh" signify the beginning of the game, and following the game set-up, you have all the sounds from a continuous 'gunboat' engine

muggle in the background, to the torpedos being launched and splashing in the water! Other tonalities include the 'electronic' equipment sound of the sub (with periscope moving back and forth at the same time) and Morse Code heard faintly. Also after a round by either you or the computer, the sounds and 'flashing' of the direct light communication used between ships when preferring radio silence. If the game is a draw (i.e. peace is declared because the game has gone on too long with no winner), a message appears in the form of a printout over the teletype with the slow printing of individual characters and the sound effects to match ...

This gives you an idea of the detail in the game, it enhances what is a popular board-type game into a well-adapted computer game. Unfortunately, it is a one player game only, but I see no reason why it couldn't be changed to work with two player's competing to sink one another's fleet.

 

USERS' GROUPS

Terry Barker
High Technology
1611 N.W. 23rd St.
Oklahoma City, OK 73106

Atari Computer Users Group of Houston
c/o David B. Mann
5651 Wigton
Houston, TX 77096

Atari Users Group
c/o Larry Kelley
416 No. 156 Ave.
Bennington, NE 68115

Portland Atari Club
c/o Jim Letterman
P.O.Box 1692
Beaverton, OR 97075

Atari Computer User Group of Dallas
c/o Phil Shafer
3708 Big Horn Trail
Plano, TX 75075