How to play Marine Wars online
- Move your battleship: left and right arrow keys
- Fire shells: Space bar (also starts the game)
- Player 2: F/H to move, A to fire (players take turns)
- Choose one or two players: F11 (the consoleās Select switch); a 1 or 2 appears at the top left
- Start or restart the game: F12 (the consoleās Reset switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0ā9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0ā9 loads it
Gameplay
The game runs through four scenes in a fixed order: a battleship fight by day, a battleship fight by night, an air attack by day and an air attack by night. In the battleship scenes, three rows of enemy ships sail above you, along with torpedoes, bombs and motor torpedo boats (MTBs). A scene ends once you have sunk a set number of ships and any MTBs have left the screen. In the air scenes you have to survive until a set number of fighters have flown past. The screen shows the scene number, which the manual calls the pattern, in turn with your score at the top right.
At night the top row of enemy ships is invisible. Whenever one of your shells explodes against a ship, the sea lights up for four seconds and you can see the whole enemy line. A shell fired while your ship is moving does not fly straight: it heads in the opposite direction to your movement. The enemy begins with 9 battleships and 30 fighters, and both numbers grow by two with each new scene.
You start with three battleships. Each one sinks after three hits, and you earn an extra ship for every 5,000 points. The game ends when your last ship goes down.
| Target | Points |
|---|---|
| Battleship, top row | 80 |
| Battleship, middle row | 70 |
| Battleship, bottom row | 60 |
| Enemy fighter | 80 |
| Torpedo, bomb or MTB | 30 |
| Scene cleared | 500 bonus |
Tips
- Stop before you shoot. Because a moving ship throws its shells off to the side, standing still is the easiest way to hit what is directly above you.
- Shoot torpedoes and bombs. They are worth only 30 points, but every hit you avoid keeps your ship afloat, and three hits sink it.
- Use the flash at night. Hit any ship you can see, then use the four seconds of light to aim at the hidden top row, which is worth the most.
- Clear the MTBs. A battleship scene cannot end while MTBs are still on screen.
History
Konami was best known for arcade games in the early 1980s, and it made a brief move into the Atari 2600 market in 1983. Marine Wars was part of that small line-up. Besides the Konami and Gakken releases, AtariMania lists a Brazilian version from Digivision and a European release on the SuperVision label, and the game also turned up on Brazilian multi-game cartridges.
