There are a number companies coming out with high tech versions of the classic board game “Battleship” by Hasbro. There are handheld versions, a travel version and a number of video game versions. While all these variations have wonderful bells and whistles, none comes close the excitement of the original. Hasbro’s latest version has a few acceptable bells and whistles, but nothing beats the old fashioned mano a mano pathos of the original.
Playing the game is pretty easy, but mastering it is an art form. Both sides have a game board, which looks like a laptop. On the top bingo-like grid, you keep of your shots on the opponent, and your ships are strategically placed on the bottom grid. Your goal is to hit, and eventually sink your opponent’s ships by guessing their location and then position. Misses are recorded with white pegs, hits with red pegs.
Because the opposing players are working separately, the game lends itself very naturally to online play, or, one could easily play the game over the phone. However, the game just isn’t the same if you can’t see your opponent or vice versa.
There’s something, and I can’t figure out whether it’s real or imagined, that happens to your opponent’s face after you’ve taken a shot. Was that a look of relief when I called out the letter? That would indicate there are no ships in that column. Did I detect a note of fear when I called out H5? Was there a tone of worry in my opponent’s voice?
You also can’t psyche out your opponent if you can’t see them. You can identify with the expression of anguish on your opponent’s face when you strike their massive 5 peg destroyer. The taste and even the look of blood thanks to the red peg bring out the killer instinct and if you’re lucky, intimidate your opponent.
True masters of the game, like my friend Duke, could hold a poker face the whole game, unless he’d just laid waste to one of my ships. His practiced staid expression seldom cracked to give me clues as to what lay beneath.
Sorry Atari, but you just don’t get that in a video game.
