Battleship
A board game that tested your intelligence by forcing you to decide: Play it with pen and paper or give Hasbro eighty dollars.
Just The Facts
- A game of naval strategy based on random bombardments, invisible battle cruisers, and a perfectly rectangular ocean.
History of the game
Clifford Von Wickler invented the game of "Salvo" in the early 1900s, but just inventing an enduring classic is no way to make money. Which is why Milton Bradley stole it, renamed it "Broadsides," and hit the "patent" button to get all the money. That's patent law in one lesson, and also why it's often known as "The enemy of justice and invention."
With facial hair like that he probably could have taken down a battleship with a pen.
Milton Bradley, like every other board game manufacturer in existence, has since been bought by Hasbro.
Playing Battleship
It's like looking in a mirror!
Playing Battleship is simple:
- Pick a spot at random.
- Hope your enemy's random spot doesn't hit one of your ships.
- If you hit anything, pick all four spots around it before returning to step 1.
- Try not to die of boredom, return to step 1.
Some people insist that there is psychology in this incredibly simple game, which is actually true for them because of their incredibly simple psychology. Anyone actively entertained by the tactics of Battleship could be equally enthralled by rolling dice and trying to guess what numbers will come up, and is also
- Legally retarded
- The reason Las Vegas exists
Other Versions
Electronic Battleship Advanced Mission
The same non-game, but even more expensive, now it needs batteries, and the constantly repeating speech samples ensure it annoys the parents as much as the children! It also has a single-player mode, which we only hope activates a beacon so kidnappers can rescue the player from the saddest childhood imaginable.
Battleship GI Joe
Even GI Joe couldn't make battleship exciting, and GI Joe own a goddamn battleship. Realizing that they couldn't use Duke Plan #1 (Stick Rockets On It), they instead settled for painting pictures of rockets and making the board hexagonal. Perhaps hoping to attract a new "bored bee" market.
Xbox Live Battleship
You turn that machine off and give it to someone who'll use it properly right now.
Other Milton Bradley Games
Connect 4
Another elementary pen and paper converted into marketable plastic crap form, this time an expanded and retarded version of Tic-tac-toe. Classic "It just looks good" deeply flawed kids' game where it's possible for two players to permanently spite each other and never, ever get closer to winning.
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Game where you hammer the clicking lever over and over again to get a larger number than everyone else, but they didn't call the number "XP" it didn't do as well as the sequel, World of Warcraft.
Twister
Beloved of college students too unattractive to just ask people to rub against them.
Connect four is awesome.
ReplyIs anyone looking forward to Battleship: The Motion Picture?
ReplyThought not.
I'm just looking forward to seeing Liam Neeson say, "You sunk my battleship!" Which they'll probably show in one of the trailers.
I remember playing a version of Battleship in German class* to learn German letters and numbers. The Germans pronounce the letter G as "gay" and their word for "eleven" is "elf", so G-11 was "gay elf". Being eighth graders, we thought this was hilarious.
Reply*Yes, I know this confirms everything you've ever thought about Germany.
I bet you liked G6 too
We did the same thing... but in high school...
While I love this article (especially the B&T reference), I have a bone to pick with some of the analysis:
Reply-Connect Four has a little more value than being a prettier tic-tac-toe. Namely, it has that pesky element of gravity. While gravity isn't unpredictable, it does complicate your ability to predict the outcomes and implications of any move you or your opponent can make. In other words, it's a bit more taxing on your brain than it would be if you could just place the checkers in any circle on the board, which would definitely be an unjustly glorified rip-off of tic-tac-toe. Also, while it is possible to play connect four on paper, I think it's unfair to hold that against the game. I doubt anybody thought to play the game with that kind of limit (gravity) on paper before conceptualizing it as a tangible board you suspend vertically above the ground.
-Zero skill required/possible ain't so bad. Ideally, if you pit two perfect players of any strategy-based game against each other, the game boils down to nothing more than either a game of chance, or a series of extremely boring and frustrating ties (a la tic-tac-toe). If anything, the chance element is more important than the skill element.
Finally, as many people have previously stated, Settlers of Catan kicks major ass
I had a Star Wars Battleship wich wasnt so bad...
ReplyWhich is why Milton Bradley stole it, renamed it "Broadsides," and hit the "patent" button to get all the money. That's patent law in one lesson, and also why it's often known as "The enemy of justice and invention." holy s**t the saints win the superbowl and a cracked article actually gets an economic principal right. 2010 is awesome.
ReplyI'm too drunk to read all the comments or look at any other site at the moment, but I'm assuming this has to do with the Battleship movie that is supposedly being talked about being made in the future? All I have to say is, EIGHTY f*****g dollars?!?!! Is that what the game costs these days? Am I really that f*****g old, that board games have likely more than doubled in cost since I was a kid?
ReplyWatch Kim Kardashian play Strip Battleship!
ReplySadly there are some things you can't find on the Internet.
Thank god there are sick weirdos like us who can make them. TO THE PHOTOSHOP-MOBILE! :)
Thank god there are sick weirdos like us who can make them. TO THE PHOTOSHOP-MOBILE! :)
You kids and your board games.
ReplyDARK TOWER ON THE VENN DIAGRAM! f**k AND YES! I LOVED THAT GAME!! AND I'M A GIRL! THAT'S HOW I LEARNED THE WORD "BRIGAND"! WOO!
ReplySorry about that, just excited to see it again. and the tower would make electronic noises and stuff, was awesome!!
Battleship was okay, but once I grew up it was no longer fun. I enjoyed the grid guide as well.
What does being a girl have to do with games? Nobody cares that you're a girl. Approximately half the population as the world is female. You aren't special.
After many many conversations about lesbian sex with actual lesbians (very few of which ended in restraining orders) I've discovered that often, lesbian sex is turn based interaction in which intensity and excitement builds with each turn taken. Kind of like Chess. (That is assuming you are as excited about chess as lesbians are about sex.) This is opposed to the game of Hungry Hungry Hippos that is Hetero sex.
ReplyNickolas FTW
Great article, great Venn diagram. We had to cheat like f*****g crazy just to make this game exciting. Trying to remember which cell the opponent used when cheating is where the real fun is at.
Reply***
"It's like looking in a mirror!" - this hilarious article is summed up by this image and caption.
Real men play Axis and Allies.
ReplyThat game is pretty boss. They were pushing the s**t out of it the last few Gencons (WotC {Hasbro]) bought it, of course.
"Hungry Hungry Hippos
ReplyGame where you hammer the clicking lever over and over again to get a larger number than everyone else, but they didn't call the number "XP" it didn't do as well as the sequel, World of Warcraft."
I actually lol'd at that! XD
I enjoyed reading the comments more than article itself. Well done.
ReplyBTW, we were too poor to own board games as a kid, so we punched each other in the face for entertainment.
We just figured out new ways of getting high.
There are so many s**t boardgames out there. The only boardgame I ever want to play is cranium; it requires skill, and you need to think, it's also kick-ass fun, and NOBODY EVER WANTS TO PLAY IT WITH ME. So, it's just another confirmation that people love games where you don't have to actually DO anything. *rants about f*****g lazy ass people and just trails off after the realization nobody is listening or even cares*
ReplyCranium! They asked me which wasn't a crayola color. I guessed pumkin pie and was wrong...
Most board games are completely retarded. Except Space Crusade, that s**t owned.
ReplyThe electronic one was kind cool in that you could call a radar scan at certain points to help find your enemies ships. It also had the ability to shoot multi square missiles and the carriers had small F-14s you could fly around the map to hunt for ships.
ReplySomehow making the laziest game possible even lazier.
I just have to comment on this....you DO know these games are for kids, right? I mean, you speak as a frustrated adult playing these games. Just sayin...
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesYou don't get this site do you?
He's gotta be new here.
WHAT THE f**k IS A JOKE?
toyotaobsession: No, sadly. Often times I surely don't.
It's like looking in a mirror! except for all the fire, sound and entertainment
Replyi agree
Man, you could be like, a professional joke explainer or something.
f*****g A, FB