Invasion (1972, Magnavox Odyssey): Invasion! I would think attacking this castle from the left would be a good call...

The world is a small map with 12 territories, each containing a castle. Surrounding the land portion of the map is an ocean perimeter. The land part of the world gets divided up among the players and everyone gets an equal number of castles. The object of the game is to take over everyone else's castles using your armies. You can attack any castle if it is immediately adjacent to one of your castles. After capturing a castle you get to draw a loot card which gives you gold. Use the gold to buy more armies or to buy a ship which you can use to transport armies to attack castles that aren't immediately adjacent to your already conqured land.

To Attack a castle there are two phases. The External Battle and the Internal Battle. The external battle by land can be either a Direct Attack or a Sneak Attack.

The Direct Attack is the only time you directly face-off against an opponent using the Odyssey. The duel is simply this: The Attacker sends the BallSpot across the screen at the highest speed possible, and attempts to wiggle it, using ENGLISH, past the Defender who can only use their Vertical Control to block it. It IS a bit more challenging then, say, Tennis or Football, because of the high speed of the BallSpot. Really, the game is mostly on the game board and in this case, the video component is used when dice or even Rock, Paper, Scissors would have sufficed.

This week, I decided to cover one of those games that "are so bad they're good," namely, Colin Jones' A Rockstar Ate My Hamster. If you're into tabloids, parody, chiptunes, and British wit--this weird "bargain bin" title is a must-play. Check it out!

Firebird's Elite, released in 1984 for British computers and quickly ported to the major platforms of the day--is the greatest videogame ever made. It is to videogames what the movie Citizen Kane is to film--a Mozart standing boldly against the Saliere's of his day. It was one of those rare games that was able to accomplish two feats simultaneously: One, introducing a new kind of game that would last, and two, doing so well enough to itself remain a classic of that genre. Whenever we get frustrated with game shelves laden with "me-too" games and sequels of sequels, it's useful to go back to such games as Elite and ponder what made them so great. For Elite, that greatness stems from its staggering vision; an arrogance matched only by the genius of its coders, who were able to deliver where lesser developers cried "impossible."

Here's exciting news for Star Trek TOS fans: Shatner himself will be voicing Kirk in Bethesda's upcoming Star Trek Legacy. Furthermore, he's already out publicizing the game and drumming up enthusiasm for it, mainly because he feels that the Star Trek franchise has dropped to impulse and needs a good game to buck it back up to warp speed. Although Shatner apparently doesn't play videogames (his grandson will teach him, he says), it's nice to see a TV and movie star of his stature really stepping in to the videogame scene. The game itself sounds interesting enough. From what I'm able to gather, it's a massive space strategy game that covers all eras of Trek, starting with TOS and carrying all the way through to Enterprise. There will also be support for Xbox Live, and I assume PC players will be able to join in as well. That's exactly the kind of game that would've had me bouncing off the walls with glee back in 88.