Air-Sea Battle + Little Girl
Air-Sea Battle (a.k.a. Target Fun)
My son and I have played this, but today, on the game's "write up" day, I asked my daughter if she wanted to play.
Yeah, that's a Genesis controller plugged into my Atari VCS. Yes, it's anachronistic, but then again, so is she.
She said yes! She was happy to engage in what her big guys "waste" so much time doing.
Air-Sea battle is a little bit like the Fairchild's Torpedo Alley in that you shoot stuff going across the screen using a "shooter" on the bottom of the screen. The similarity ends there and the quality of this cart, from graphics to gameplay variants, far outshines Torpedo Alley.
In the lower numbered games you each have a cannon. Sometimes, the cannon's barrel can be adjusted (raised or lowered). Sometimes, the whole cannon can be moved (left or right). And sometimes, both. Heading across the upper portion of your screen are aircraft, or boats or ducks and bunnies. Quite simply, ya shoot 'em. The higher up they are, the harder they are to hit and the more points they are worth.
The other variation on the theme is you control a Ship and your opponent is a Plane (or vice-versa). The plane flies across the screen in either direction. The player controlling the plane can only control the speed of the vehicle and, thusly, the horizontal velocity of their shots. It is, Air vs. Sea in title and function. The Ship shoots up at the Plane, the Plane shoots down at the ship. Some of the Plane vs. Ship variants are neat. They all let you control your vehicle's speed (fast, normal and slow) but one version locks you into whatever speed you're currently traveling when you fire your missile. It allows for some nuance in the gameplay that isn't immediately apparent.
I guess this is another nostalgia cart for me. I played it as a kid and I have even more fun playing it with my kids. I'll throw it into the group of carts I'm holding onto... forever!
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