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Arcadia 2001 » Action

# Ocean Battle

# Review by D23NZ

## "A navy battle game"

Ocean Battle was purely a 2 player game i.e. there was no 1 player mode. It has been around 15 years since I last played the game but I will try to recall it as accurately as possible.

The objective of the game is to destroy all enemy units (ships or subs).

The game had two screen types. One was essentially a world map. The other was a combat screen.

On the world map you could see each sea vehicle (both yours and your opponents). When the world map is showing, you can control one of your units (easily) at a time. When two units of opposite sides touch, the world map screen is replaced with a close combat screen. The two units would then go into combat.

On the combat screen, if a unit is a sub, it can move up, down, left and right as well as fire. If a unit is a ship, it can move left and right on the surface as well as fire. If the combat is between two of the same type of units (sub/ship) then firing would be done horizontally. If the combat is between two different types of units then firing would be done vertically, with the ship dropping stuff down at the sub and the sub shooting up at the ship.

There were several different ships and I am pretty sure there were different types of subs. The sub I can remember most vividly was a mini-sub. A mini-sub vs mini-sub would be a fair fight but a mini-sub vs large battle ship would almost certainly result in the battle ship winning.

I recall that changing control of units was done in an unusual way. Instead of pressing a single button to change the selected unit, it used just about every button on the control pad. The Arcadia 2001 (or Tunix as it was called in New Zealand) control pads had lots of buttons. There was a directional pad/joystick, two fire buttons on the sides, plus 12 buttons arranged and labeled like a telephone. The current unit could maneuver nicely by using the joystick but the other units had limited movement.

The game had at least one programming error. If two pairs of opposing units on the world map collide at the same time, instead of randomly choosing which pair is to go into battle, the game would crash. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar error existed if two opposing units were to kill each other at the same time.

There was no music and sound effect would have been nothing more than beeps and squeaks.

Judging the quality of the game is difficult because of how old it is.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/06

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