How to play Armor Ambush online
Armor Ambush has no computer opponent, so it needs two players at the same keyboard.
- Player 1: up arrow moves forward, left and right arrows turn the tank, down arrow switches to your other tank, Space fires
- Player 2: T moves forward, F and H turn, G switches tanks, A fires
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch), then press fire to bring up the first battle map
- Ricocheting shots on or off: F4 (the left difficulty switch)
- Save and load a battle: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
One player commands the black tanks and the other the blue. Each side starts the war with 25 tanks and brings two onto every battlefield, but controls only one at a time. Pulling the joystick back hands control to the second tank, which stays exposed while you fight with the first. Three hits destroy a tank. A round ends when one player has lost both tanks; pressing fire then brings up a new map with trees, buildings and water in different places. The game ends when one side has lost all 25 tanks.
The terrain matters. Tanks are fastest on roads, slower in the trees and slowest in water. They cannot enter buildings, and shots cannot pass through buildings or trees. Tanks cannot reverse: to turn around you have to drive in a circle. Every shot also pushes your own tank off its aim, and a hit knocks the enemy’s tank off course too.
Only the left difficulty switch has an effect. In position B, a shot that misses simply disappears. In position A, shots bounce off obstacles and can come back to hit your own tank.
Tips
- Get in close. Shots have a limited range, so very long shots won’t reach their target.
- Re-aim after every shot. Recoil turns your tank a little each time you fire, so line up the barrel again before the next one.
- Use the roads to reposition. Moving through trees or water leaves you slow and easy to hit.
- Switch tanks when you are losing a duel. A damaged tank can be parked while your fresh one attacks from another angle.
- Watch your rebounds on setting A. Firing at a nearby building can send the shot straight back at you.
History
Armor Battle was designed by Chris Kingsley and came out for the Intellivision in 1979. When Mattel started publishing Atari 2600 games as M Network, it was one of the Intellivision titles converted for Atari owners, under a new name. The 2600 version keeps the core ideas of two tanks per side, three-hit kills and changing maps. Programmer Hal Finney later became well known in cryptography and as an early contributor to Bitcoin. The cartridge was later reissued by INTV with a white label.
