Space Battle (Intellivision)

[VideoGameCritic]

I recently bought the new Battlestar Galactica version of Space Battle (with voice). I liked the original Space Battle but it had been a while since I played. So I got reacquainted with it and I'm impressed. On the radar screen you can deploy three squadrons and direct them to attack aliens or return to base. There's a lot of multitasking going for a 1979 game!

The battles are great. The alien spacecraft scale, rotate and do all sorts of maneuvers. And this isn't even a Sega CD! And when you shoot on, the ensuing explosion can take out other nearby craft, creating chain reactions. I find it interesting that the alien craft ALREADY look like Cylons.

Once I get good at this again I'll switch over to the Battlestar Galactica version so I can compare the two.

[BlasteroidAli]

I was playing space battle on the Atari collection dlc for PC. It comes out as a cross between Starship (2600) and Star Raiders. Without the game play of the former. The object being that the aliens do not get into your home sector. I had another go at it today after reading the manual and it is actually rather good.

I think Star Raiders did it better. The 2600 game was very basic but the 800 version was very good.
Related games
Starmaster
Star Voyager
Elite
Wing Commander.
Star Citizen.. if it ever comes out.
I will look forward to your review. I still think that the Intellivision was the weakest of the big three first gen machines. I do not count the Philips Video Pac /Channel F they were really not contenders.

[BlasteroidAli]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDu-WAVgRv4

An info commercial.. no mention of speech.. think that is space spartans..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O17bGSd9SU

Once you compare you will know... yep that Asteroids beats the lot of them!! Comparing 3 games to 1 from Atari.

[VideoGameCritic]

Well, after playing Space Battle I was worried about the Battlestar Galactica version I just bought. I mean, Space Battle is damn near perfect, and the enemy ships already look like Cylons for Pete's sake.

Well my worries melted away when I tried it. This is awesome. The graphics have been given a noticeable overhaul. There's a lot more color and information on the screen. The new overlays look badass, and it's easy to direct your squadrons around the screen. But the battle screen is even better. The controls are much faster and more responsive! Enemy shots come at you a lot faster so the difficulty is higher too.

The voice effects are a great touch. Instead of a generic drone, there seem to be different voices saying various things. It sounds like a human yellow "nice shot!" but a robot announcing "the base is under attack".

It might be tough to go back after experiencing this turbo-charged, fully-realized version of Space Battle.

[BlasteroidAli]

Well, after playing Space Battle I was worried about the Battlestar Galactica version I just bought. I mean, Space Battle is damn near perfect, and the enemy ships already look like Cylons for Pete's sake.

Well my worries melted away when I tried it. This is awesome. The graphics have been given a noticeable overhaul. There's a lot more color and information on the screen. The new overlays look badass, and it's easy to direct your squadrons around the screen. But the battle screen is even better. The controls are much faster and more responsive! Enemy shots come at you a lot faster so the difficulty is higher too.

The voice effects are a great touch. Instead of a generic drone, there seem to be different voices saying various things. It sounds like a human yellow "nice shot!" but a robot announcing "the base is under attack".

It might be tough to go back after experiencing this turbo-charged, fully-realized version of Space Battle.

Awesome, thanks for the update.

[goldenband]

Did you know there are also two versions of Space Battle? The initial release was too easy, so they revised the ROM to make it a bit harder, and later copies use that version.

There were also two versions of Auto Racing (steering revision) and Armor Battle (massive increase to gameplay speed), as well as some other games that got far more minor changes or bugfixes.

[VideoGameCritic]

I did NOT know about the revisions! Who knew they had bug fixes way back in the day? I guess Mattel kept it on the down-low.