Price Range: $40
Age Range: 8+
No. of Players: 1-2
Time to Learn: 15 minutes
Time to Setup: 15 minutes
Reading Skills Needed: YES
Playtime: 30-45 minutes

Game Rating:***

Game Review: This version of Battleship isn't for those of us with short attention spans! Well I guess the original Battleship didn't exactly move at a fast pace either, depending on how lucky you or your opponent got with hitting each other's ships. But this game goes really, REALLY slow. The idea is pretty cool: you push buttons to enter coordinates to try to hit and sink your opponent's battleships. Complete with sound effects, you find out if it's a hit or a miss. The problem is that you have to spend a lot of time setting the darn thing up in the first place. And if you have ever tried to set something up for a particularly antsy kid who was anxious to just get down to playing his or her new Christmas or birthday present, you know how frustrating this can be. Basically you have to manually enter the coordinates for each of your ships so that the computer knows where they are. That's right, it's advanced....but not so advanced that it knows where your ships are without you telling it! My son who is 12 is the one who asked for this game, and for him, it's difficult to get all those coordinates correct. Basically we had to find another adult who would enter all his ship coordinates for him so that he could then play against a sibling, cousin, or other adult. Pretty tedious. In addition, the game just seemed to drag out FOREVER. He got bored with it well before we were finished. I guess the good thing is that if Battleship is really something you enjoy, you CAN play it on your own in solo mode against the computer. In addition, there are "advanced" missions which allow a variety of exciting options, including unique weapons and reconnaissance airplanes. In conclusion, I would say that this game would be best for the war game enthusiast in your family, or a particularly patient and attentive older child (I am having a very hard time imagining most of the 8-year-olds I have ever met actually having the patience for this game).