Memorial Day is traditionally the start of the summer blockbuster season, and this week alone we had the heavy hitter releases of Diablo III, Max Payne III and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier next week. And Battleship is out today.
The 141-minute film aboout aliens that look vaguely like Michael Bay's Transformers sleeping in the ocean based on the board game about red and white pegs is now in theaters. But as you're probably aware, the video game adaption of Battleship is out for the 360 and PS3. Shockingly, it isn't the first time that some poor soul decided to transfer a board game into the digital gaming realm. Which is why it is only fitting all three versions be compared to one another, as your eyes and ears try to recover after seeing Battleship explode in your face...in 3D.
Let's have a brief tale of the circular pegs:
Battleship (board game)
Date of creation: 1967
Released by: Milton Bradley
How To Play: Two gullible children open up tiny plastic briefcases, assemble tiny plastic boats ranging from the two-peg destroyer/patrol boat to the five-peg aircraft carrier. They then shout numbers and letters at each other until the sinking realization that their imaginations are failing them becomes apparent.
Reach: Children ages 5 to 12.
Length: About 15 minutes, or until the children are bored enough.
Battleship (NES/Game Gear)
Date of creation: 1993
Released by: Mindscape
How to Play: 1 to 2 gullible children are needed to insert a disk into a slot, press the power button and wait as glorious pixels inform them they are playing Battleship. Soon, they will give up when the superior 8-bit processor in their Nintendo can outthink a small child.
Reach: Children ages 5-17.
Length: 40 levels. It's very likely 30 of them were never seen by children.
Battleship (360/PS3)
Date of creation: 2012
Released by: Double Helix
How to Play: It's a First-Person Shooter with artilery elements that will make your head spin as hard as the movie's plot demands it. There's also multiplayer.
Reach: Call of Duty/Halo fans from 11 to 12.
Length: Probably far longer than it should be.
Now that we have the odds, let's crunch the data!
And by crunch the data, we highly encourage you to play Tetris instead. Tetris, as you may well know, is the puzzle game designed by Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. The game quickly took on a life of its own--before Pajitnov could copyright it, and it spread to the United States. By far, one of the last games that have survived the adaptation to film because it is simply impossible to ever do, but it remains incredibly compelling to children that like to be amused rather than blandly play war games.
But if Tetris did involve some drama, it might be like this:
