8. Combat

Combat
Atari 2600
1977



Sun Tzu wrote “It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”  He was probably talking about Tank-Pong when he wrote that. 

War may be hell, but Combat is just plain fun.  You and a buddy try to kill each other in tanks.  Or you and a buddy try to shoot each other down in a dogfight.  In tanks, you can play with guided missiles (awesome), invisible tanks (awesome), or ping-pong shells (awesome).   In the skies you can play with jets (awesome) or biplanes (not all that awesome).

  

Despite the fact that the tank stages can be pretty imbalanced, with one side quickly racking up consecutive kills, Combat never stops being fun.  When I play Combat with my roommate, we play a lot of Combat, as cycle through one game mode after the next.  If this game has taught me anything, it is that Combat breeds more Combat. 

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