Combat Two [Model CX26156]

Combat Two © 1982 Atari, Incorporated.

The first thing most people notice is that the cramped arena style boards of the original have been replaced with a large landscape of forests, rivers, and bridges. The forests give the player some cover from enemy bullets as you can drive through the forest blocks, but must shoot them out of the way to hit the player. The brick walls act very similar to forest blocks, but cannot be driven through. The river doesn't seem to effect the tanks at all as they can be driven over with no penalty, it is unknown if the final version would allow the tanks to go through the water or not. Bridges provide a route over the water but with a large speed penalty, so perhaps the water is supposed to be a barrier after all? Combat Two features a built in level designer where players can set up the walls or forests on their side of the screen, making for some interesting playfields.

Each player now has a base in a corner which they can take cover in. This base provides shelter against a few hits, but also allows the player to launch a cruise missile. The cruise missile automatically homes in on the enemy for an almost guaranteed hit, but can only be shot from within the base and takes time to recharge. Perhaps the biggest change to the game is the addition of armor, each player now has three layers of armor to protect their tank (no more one hit kills). Each tank shot will lower the enemy's armor level by one, and a cruise missile hit will lower it by two. Armor levels will recover over time, but three successive hits will destroy the tank. You can tell how low your armor level is by the color of the tank and by the status of the tank picture in the status bar which will worsen with each hit. Unlike its predecessor where each player had infinite lives, players in Combat Two only have three lives to work with. The player left standing at the end wins.