by Erik M. Dell

Created on: April 18, 2007   Last Updated: July 02, 2008

You sank my Battleship!

This memorable cry brings back nostalgic memories. In a world full of video games and electronic gizmos this game of little plastic boats is still selling briskly after over 20 years on the market. A truly marvelous game that teaches strategy and keeps the players thinking the entire time.

The game is played with two players. Each player has an "L" shaped game board with a grid on the top on bottom of the "L". The grid is full of holes with letters and numbers forming coordinates. The top grid is to record your shots and the bottom grid is used to record your opponents shots. This view provides a good snapshot of the game status. The colored pegs allow the people playing the game to analyze possible boat placements.

To begin the game each player take his pieces in the form of plastic boats and places them on the lower grid. There are five ships ranging from two holes (number of hits taken before it sinks) to five holes. Then the players start calling out their shots. Red pegs are provided for hits and white pegs for misses. A single game can take up to an hour including setting up the pieces.

There are several boats on the map but the goal (at least in the commercial) is to sink the battleship which is reminiscent of World War II when these behemoths were the be all and end all of naval warfare. During the attack on Pearl Harbor one of Japan's main targets were the series of battleships moored at the pier, also known as Battleship Row.

The beauty of this game is that is can be taught quickly and the board constantly changes as well do the strategies to find the hidden boats. This provides hours of entertainment and can be enjoyed by almost all ages. Typically no two games are the same as the grids allow for a large amount of variance in the placement of your ships. Scoring a hit on a boat is great fun. Marking a white peg for a miss one space away from your ship is tense as well. I would almost say a poker face needs to be played in these instances.

You sank my Battleship! This cry of defeat is priceless when it's uttered by children playing the game. For about ten bucks you can get the regular edition or if you are willing to fork out a little more dough you can get the cool new electronic version. The bang for buck factor on this game can be high if you have children close in age or even if an adult is willing to play. As far as board games go Battleship is a must own for any family.

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