Two Player Games

[Mendon]

I read and enjoyed the Utopia thread, and while read it I got to thinking: what two player games did my family and I enjoy and play the most?

 

Sea Battle probably got the most action of all, as we had many "family" contests and everyone enjoyed the game. And each of us had our own style, such as the wife using mines extensively while my son's preferred all out battles between the ships and I used a combo of both.

 

Snafu was another fun game that all five of us played a lot. Yep, there were a few #$%^& words when a wrong turn was made, but there were plenty of smiles and lots of bragging as the victories were won and the great theme music played. And I'll never forget the "hisssssss" as your snake grew and grew.

 

Backgammon was another game (like Utopia) that my son's avoided like the plague but my wife and I played many, many an hour. Yep, we could have bought a real board and played it by candlelight (add in some wine and the wife and I would have spent less time in the living room ) but we had a blast playing it on the Intelly.

 

Sports games were avoided by the wife as she just had no interest in them. But my son's and I spent a lot of time battling each other in NFL Football and Major League Baseball and we even had a white board on the wall where we charted our won-loss records and kept a schedule.

 

(By the time Slam Dunk Basketball and World Championship Baseball came along, my son's had moved on to other interests in life (girls and real sports) but at least with these two games I could play against the computer.)

 

Anyone else have favorite two player games?

 

 

Mendon

[Numan]

I have alot of memories of Snafu because my dad took us out to pick a new game to buy. We had decided on Snafu and at first it definitely was a case of buyer's remorse. The trap game became one of our favorites over time, Game One version. The music was always a favorite part.

 

Sea Battle a friend owned and I was surprised to read a bad review of it because it was always a decent matchup. My best boat was the sub.

[+DZ-Jay]

I played Basketball with my cousin (the closest I ever got to actually knowing the rules of the sport), and Tennis with my sisters, but they really weren't much of a "favorite."

 

My favorite two player game was Utopia (of course). As I mentioned in the other thread, my other favorite "two player" game was B-17 Bomber. It's not really a two player game, but my Father and I played it together. We always took turns, but while one was actively playing, the other played navigator or gunner.

 

My Father was a history buff (I believe he had two minors in college, in History and English), and he would try to pick out specific cities on the map to bomb--according to actual known bomb raids in WWII. Like in Utopia, he would give me history lessons on actual battles and events, explain what "flak" was, and give me lessons on the range and capabilities of German anti-air guns.

 

I learned from him about the German U-Boot surrounding the North Atlantic; the Messerschmitt; the Focke-Wulf. I learned about the Luftwaffe in general and even about the legacy of the Volkswagen and the Autobahn (having lived in Germany for a while, my Father respected the Germans and admire their technology).

 

(Funny, I don't recall much information--if any--on the British RAF, hum...)

 

I always felt that, with my Father, B-17 Bomber was less of a game and more of an actual simulation. By that I mean that playing the game felt more attached to reality, not only to the events of the war, but more to the actual physics and other natural constraints of the game world.

 

You see, although the game is of course a simulation, to an 8 year old it may have seem an arbitrary game constraint that I needed to return to base before running out of fuel; that adding more bombs would reduce the fuel capacity; or that flying too high would consume more fuel. All these things just make the difficulty greater, like many other games.

 

However, when I played with my Father, he would see through the game constraints and project his understanding of the real world. I recall one time he got shot down while flying over a heavily defended part in the north of Germany. Right before, while getting hit a constantly, he climbed to a very high altitude. He explained that he would either run out of fuel or get shot down, but either way he would try to glide down to the coast of England--or crash.

 

The game behaved in exactly this expected way, and he managed to touch the edge of the English coast barely (echoing the voice-over saying, "Mayday! Mayday!," while coming down fast).

 

The discrete "cut-off" of merely touching the coast did not bother him either. He could explain that away by speculating that his plane probably crashed landed on a British farm somewhere in the coast, and was still repairable.

 

And what did I do through all this? I would use a map of Europe to help him pick cities to attack. I would also help him navigate, and advise him on the timing of the bomb drops ("Steady... steaaaaady... waiiiiiit..... NOW!"). And most importantly, I would be his constant alarm repeating, "Bandits! 3 o'clock!," while he was fiddling with the control panel. Being more nimble with the disc, I would sometimes take the right-controller and shoot down bandits, too.

 

I hope that I have not disturbed this thread too much by picking a single-player game as my favorite two-player game. To me, B-17 Bomber has always been a team game.

 

Ah, good times, great memories.

 

Cheers!

-dZ.

[Mendon]

What a **GREAT** post and story, DZ!! Thanks much for sharing it!!

 

My wife, three son's, and I shared a lot of gaming time together and I like to think that it brought us all a little bit closer and maybe expanded our relationships a bit more.

 

As an example, I'm a baseball fanatic and Major League Baseball was a must buy when I bought my Intellivision. One of my three son's showed a true interest in the sport as he played me on the Intelly, asking all kinds of questions about baseball history and players. He soon joined me in watching our home state Detroit Tiger's on television and when we would play MLB on the Intellivision, he became the "announcer" during the game and named his team after the various players he liked.

 

His interest in the sport began to grow and grow as he became a starter on his high school baseball team, then became a three year starter at Western Michigan University and finally was drafted by the Cincinnati Red's when he graduated. (He played only two years in the minor's as he realized he didn't really have all the pure skills necessary to become a pro).

 

Maybe I'm totally off base (pun intended) but I like to think that maybe part of his interest in baseball and the success he had while playing the sport got its start with the hours spent sitting down and beating Dad on the Intellivision.

 

 

Mendon

[riffraff]

My memories of 2-player intv fun was centered around the sports games. MLB, NFL, and NHL were all quite fun. I often did not have very good competition. I think I stole home 2 or 3 times in one game against my friend. I think Boxing was the best 2-player game. It was a mind game as much as anything, and probably the only boxing game I can remember that had a "feign" button

 

I remember thinking how good the sports games were compared with the 2600 tho. Atari 5200's came after and blew them out of the water tho. Soccer, Realsports Baseball, etc. were quite a leap ahead.

[Numan]

Baseball, Tennis and Basketball were big in my family. We had Football, but it wasn't played much.

 

I also played B-17 Bomber as a two player game at times.

[Skylark68]

Outside of Utopia, Snafu was a big favorite at our house. My brother and I played that a whole bunch. We liked playing with the 2 computer opponents as well and that yellow snake sure did some tricky stuff.

 

Armor Battle was another fun one, although we preferred the M Network port of the game on the 2600.

[IntellivisionDude]

I only got to play 2 player games when my friend came over. We played just about every game i owned.

 

I'd say Slam Dunk and NBA Basketball may have been played the most. And the other sports games i owned, Slap Shot, W.C. Baseball, S.P. Football. But i do remember we wore Slam Dunk out. It was super realistic at the time. Getting to draft your players, having to subs players in and out so they don't get tired or fouled out. And you have to imagine that we lived just a couple miles north of Detroit and Slam Dunk was released just 1 year before the Pistons won the NBA Championship (I think) and went to the Finals and lost to the Lakers the year prior. So Basketball was in our blood. (I could be a year off on that but you get the point, i may not have bought the game right away anyway).

 

We also played plenty of non sports titles, Snafu, Burgertime (back then my friend held the record for getting the farthest in Burgertime. It wouldn't be until a couple years ago i finally surpassed him. lol), Auto Racing (if we weren't playing just for the thrill of speed and getting the best time, we were playing demolition derby style trying to run the other off the road to crash).

 

Can't forget about Boxing. While it may be a super simplistic game we had a blast. We had our own strategies, like wearing down the other opponent with lots of body shots first before going for the knockout.

 

I'm not going to talk about every game but just the ones we had the most fun at. Still looking at the list of games.

 

Even lots of Frog Bog, Skiing (can't remember which one of us had the record but it was close either way)

 

You know i never liked the 2 player on Shark Shark, it would of been so much more fun if you got to work together instead of being able to eat each other.

 

We even mastered the very complicated Super Pro Decathlon. That took way way too much practice to master. Plus it pretty much destroyed my controllers.

 

We played a lot more than those, but these stick in my mind the most. Most of the other games i played more when i was by myself. Just like today. lol