checkers lined on pips
lie waiting to hit a blot -
where is my home board?
Additional Comments:
Huzzah! Intellivision lives! Ok, maybe Backgammon isn't the best game to herald it in, but the system's clumsy controller has so far gotten the better of me as I continue to try and tackle Advanced Dungeons & Dragons on the upper difficulties. So, until I can master akimbo-like prestidigitation, board gaming it is. Again, I'm sure there's something else I could have played through first, but honestly, I like backgammon. There's a certain nostalgia that comes with the traditional form of the game as I used to play it all the time as a kid - backgammon, acey-deucey, and I think possibly a couple other variants. Nowadays, it's become nothing more than a forgotten memory, so when I recently picked up a healthy stack of Intellivision games, I just had to pick up Backgammon as well. Maybe it's not quite the same experience as the real thing, but as long as the basic rules are in play, I've no qualms about facing off with a thirty-plus year old gaming machine no matter how trivial the game may seem in terms of today's video gaming extravagance.
Unfortunately, for the benefits of Beat All Games, there's very little to say about the game. It's backgammon through and through. The rules are in place, and regardless of difficulty, it's the next best thing to sitting down with an actual backgammon board. If I had to point a finger at anything, it'd likely be the one thing that most differentiates a digitized emulation of the game from the real deal: the dice. No matter the game and no matter the hardware, digitized die rolls just feel...phony. This especially becomes apparent in Backgammon on Mode 2 where the computer seems to have a fairly high percentage chance of rolling doubles while the player has nil to none. I played Mode 2 twice, having lost the first round thanks to a fortuitous doubles roll by the computer on the final play - a round in which I didn't roll doubles even once. Now, it should be said that I've really no place to complain because it's completely plausible to play through a real game of backgammon without rolling doubles even once. But to have a relative similar dice rolling outcome in both rounds where I really had to fight to overcome the computer's wrath of doubles, I do have to question the integrity of the dice rolling algorithm used in Mode 2.
The issue is that I'm not completely sure if that is what should constitute a higher degree of difficulty - as least on it's own accord. But from a programmer's perspective, perhaps it is the easiest way to present two difficulty tiers. To contrast the two modes, Mode 1 plays out more like a head to head race, solely reliant on high dice rolls. Very little is done regarding "combat" as blotting is nearly impossible thanks to the high quantity of doubles. Mode 2, however, is heavily strategy laden. Since the die results aren't there, you have to rely on sacrificial blots, tactical hits and the off chance to prime. While my first attempt at Mode 2 nearly ended in victory, and rather easily at that, I had to fight like hell in the second round. Hits were consistently traded off, and in the end I had to make prime to ensure that I could get my remaining checkers around the board before the computer could. Thing is, it was a thrilling round to play - felt more traditional to playing a real player because there was a lot more strategy involved throughout. Unfortunately, the strategy didn't necessarily come down to the computer being particularly wily. It was all a result of the computer's onslaught of doubles compared to my near absence of them. Hmm....
In the end though, there's no real reason to complain. The game works on a fundamental level as it should. The luck of the draw regarding dice can boil down to exactly that - luck. Sure, the law of averages would likely play out a bit more in real life, but it did lend for some great rounds nonetheless.
There is one other aspect of the game that bothered me. While not egregious by any means, the placement of the home board caught me completely off guard. Unfortunately, due to the nature of play, the home board can either be to your left or right depending on which side of the table you're sitting on. I often played the game sitting on the side in which the home board resided on my right. I guess out of instinct more than anything, I wrongfully assumed such is the case here. This led to a couple of bad plays on my initial game. My anticlockwise fixation got the better of me; more than once I might add rather embarrassingly. From my perspective, it just seemed natural that my checkers revolve thusly, and despite spending some time contemplating checker direction and home board placement - again, rather embarrassingly - it still felt off to move my pieces against the grain.
Nevertheless, ABPA Backgammon is a fine digital replication of a fantastic board game. Still, I'd rather play the game against an actual player, but in the meantime, the Intellivision manages just fine as a temporary replacement.
Rating: 4 pips out of 5
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