Smithereens!

The Good
Artillery games were quite popular back in the day, and they still are. Two or more players try to nuke each other using a variety of weapons. The challenge is the terrain that stands between the opponents and the way you have to avoid blowing yourself up. I was familiar with artillery games ever since I played the shareware game of Scorched Earth for MS-DOS, followed by a much better version called Scorched Tanks for the Amiga.

A much earlier game was Stone Sling (Known as Smithereens! in the US). It is a two-player game where you and your opponent are quite a distance from each other, and both of you are supplied with catapults and a wall that can be broken. The object, then, is to be the first to break your opponent’s walls. If you can’t find someone to play with you, you can always plug in two joysticks anyway, with one hand controlling one joystick, and the other hand controlling the other.

Unlike most artillery games where you have to enter the angle and velocity to make a shot, all you have to do here is hold the joystick down in any direction, then release it to make a shot. The longer you keep holding, the further the stone flies. My strategy is to keep holding the joystick for a number of seconds and let go. If I make a hit, then great, then I will remember how long I should hold the joystick down, then let go. If not, I vary how long I take until I do.

You get to watch an impressive animation of your catapult throwing a stone and your opponent’s wall crumbling away. An even more impressive animation is a player walking off-screen to repair their catapult. While he is off-screen, you can keep chipping away at his wall, therefore making him have less turns than you.

As far as graphics go, they are bland while playing the game on a standard Odyssey 2 machine, with just a black background, and a pool of water separating the two figures. However, users who own a Videopac+ G7400 got a better deal. The blandness is replaced with a detailed backdrop, with fortresses separating the two figures, a castle in the distance and a lake running from it, and two knights watching the action. At the end of the game, I enjoyed watching the winner blow his horn while the loser raises the white flag.

The Bad
I can't think of anything.

The Bottom Line
This is a simple artillery game where there is no such thing as terms such as "angle" or "velocity"; you just push your joystick in any direction to fire at your opponent. The longer you hold it, the further your shots. The animations are great, and VP+ G7400 users are treated to a gorgeous backdrop that lets you feel like you're actually there. One of the earliest artillery games I know.