Armor Battle is a multiplayer tank combat game for the Intellivision that was released in 1979.

Considering its age, Armor Battle could be considered to be quite ahead of its time; particularly in terms of graphics. The isometric viewpoint, showing buildings, trees, rivers, lakes, and bridges, is a perfect setting for a tank battle – much more so than the simple mazes seen in Atari‘s Combat (a direct rival to this game at the time).

And – like Atari‘s Combat – Armor Battle is a two-player only game. There is no ‘Artificial Intelligence’ controlling enemy tanks, so – if you don’t have a friend to play with – the game is extremely boring.

With two players, though, the game comes alive. Each player has two tanks each but can only control one at a time. You can switch between them with a button press. Matches become a game of cat and mouse, with players taking cover behind trees and buildings and waiting for that opportunity to pounce. The first player to destroy fifty opponent tanks is the winner.

Of course Armor Battle is very limited, but we are taking about a game that was developed in 1978 and released in 1979, so we shouldn’t be too hard on it. For the time – and for what it is – Armor Battle is classic two-player console game.

More: Armor Battle on Wikipedia