countermeasure

n.
A measure or action taken to counter or offset another one.

noun

Something that corrects or counteracts: antidote, corrective, curative, cure, remedy. See better/worse.

n. an action taken to counteract a danger or threat.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

• Release Date: 1984
• Genre: Shooter
• Style: Overhead Free-Roaming Shooter
• Similar Games: Combat (Atari Video Computer System), Assault (Atari Video Computer System), Armor Ambush (Atari Video Computer System), Armor Battle (Intellivision)

Game Description

CONDITION RED! Terrorists have seized a missile silo complex and are threatening to destroy Washington D.C.! These malevolent miscreants have wired the missiles to a silo computer and started the launch sequence timer. Unless your reflexes and tank driving skills are exceptionally sharp, the missiles will take off for Washington. To avert catastrophe, you must destroy all the silos in the complex before the timer reaches zero.

If the timer begins running out before you have accomplished your mission, you still have a chance to prevent what could be World War III. Prior to impact, you can dock your supertank at a silo, enter a War Room, and enter a code that might disarm the missiles. The code each time is a randomly chosen combination of the letters L, E and O. If your guess is wrong, it's goodbye capital.

The tank you pilot moves on a scrolling playfield and is equipped with a long-range turret gun that rotates 360 degrees. The turret moves independently of the body of the tank. When out in the open, the tank can cruise at fast speed, but it moves slower through fields and slower still through woods and towns. You will run low on fuel from time to time, but you can refuel at supply depots that dot the field of play. You can also pick up fail-safe code clues at some of the supply depots.

As you go about your silo-destroying business, tanks, jeeps and cruise missiles will try to detract you from your mission and destroy your tank. Shoot them or try to avoid their fire. Also, pillboxes, which are little arrows that rotate and fire in your direction, guard the silos and supply depots. You can knock them out of commission for extra points.

If you are successful in destroying all the silos or entering the proper code, you will earn 10,000 points, an extra life, and a Congressional Medal of Honor. Good luck! The safety of our great nation is in your capable hands!

Roots & Influences

Although Countermeasure lacks a two-player simultaneous mode, it does owe its origins to Combat (1977), a ground-breaking tank shooter for the Atari 2600.

Armor Battle, with its trees and other terrain, is also an influence. It was released in (1979) for the Intellivision.

Review: Overall

At first glance, Countermeasure appears to be an action/strategy war game along the lines of War Room or WarGames, both of which were released for the ColecoVision -- the Atari 5200's greatest rival. However, upon further inspection, you'll discover that it is a tank shooter in the tradition of Front Line (for the ColecoVision), Armor Attack (for the Vectrex) and Armor Battle (for the Intellivision). As tank shooters go, Countermeasure is, as they say, certainly one of them.

Countermeasure is much too difficult, even for seasoned gamers. There are ten difficulty levels and, with the exception of level zero, which could be used as a training ground of sorts, they are all wickedly treacherous. The pillboxes that are placed throughout your pathways point your way at just the wrong times. Your tank is much too slow and cumbersome for the routes you must take. The operating system for the tank works really well with separate controls for aiming and driving, but you're an easy target much of the time and will get picked off far more often than you would deem fair.

The developers of the game obviously knew they had created an inordinately humbling game, so they inserted an unusual feature: a secret code that gives you a chance to win no matter how poorly you are playing. When things are looking grim, simply hop into a silo and begin pushing various combinations of the letters L, E, and O as fast as you can. It's very difficult to beat Countermeasure fairly (by destroying all the silos in a level), so you will resort to this "cheat" often. The combinations aren't exactly infinite, but you'll definitely need luck on your side to land the right one within the time limit.

Your tank in this game goes very slow over rough terrain. This is a nifty feature in theory and is certainly logical, but it slows down an already lumbering game. Countermeasure trudges along at a boring pace and lacks the features (such as grenades, limited ammo, or the ability to jump out of your tank) that can make slower games more interesting. Limited fuel adds a little spice to the game, but not much.

Perhaps the most surprising weakness of Countermeasure is its muddled graphics during standard gameplay. It looks more like a defective Intellivision game than an Atari 5200 cartridge. Much of the terrain consists of scattered jumbles of blocks. The game looks much better after you save the world or unwittingly destroy it. After you destroy all the silos, you'll see a moonlit night as a background to your tank on a hill. If you fail, a colorfully flashing skull-and-crossbones symbol covers the entire screen.

One of the few Atari 5200 games not released for any other system, Countermeasure should have stayed unreleased. It's a slow, plodding game with muddy graphics and a prohibitive level of difficulty.

Review: Enjoyment

This game is hard, slow and frustrating. Definitely one of the weaker games in the Atari 5200 library.

Review: Graphics

The graphics are cluttered and lacking in crisp detail during the missions. Luckily, you'll get a visual treat after you win or lose.

Review: Sound

Sound effects throughout the game are grating. The constant whir of the tank's engine sounds like interference from sunspots in an old radio transmission. The music that plays after you destroy all the silos is adequate, though uninspired.

Review: Replay Value

Not unplayable, but very hard and prohibitively slow. A {*Combat}-like two-player mode would help.

Review: Documentation

The manual is thorough.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - modforanstaltning, modtræk

Nederlands (Dutch)
tegenmaatregel

Français (French)
n. - contre-mesure

Deutsch (German)
n. - Gegenmaßnahme

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αντίμετρο

Italiano (Italian)
contromisura

Português (Portuguese)
n. - contramedida (f)

Русский (Russian)
ответная мера

Español (Spanish)
n. - contramedida, contramedidas de emergencia

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - motåtgärd

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
对策, 反抗手段

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 對策, 反抗手段

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 대항책, 보복수단

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 対応策, 対抗手段

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) اجرا مضاد‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תגובה, צעד נגדי‬

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