Posted on:If you’re a fan of demolishing your friends and rivals in fast-paced bar-game action, you’re going to love the new Battle Arena mode in AMI’s new ML-1 units. It’s the same great Megatouch games you’ve been working to master, only now you and a friend can go head-to-head with simultaneous competitive play. There’s a whole bunch of Megatouch favorites to choose from for your Battle Arena escapades, including Hoop Jones, 11 Ball, and Card Bandits. And there’s more on the way!
Battle Arena’s not just good for having some fun – it’s also a great way to settle disagreements and long-standing rivalries. Disagree with your friend about whether or not the Cosmopolitan is a girly drink? Take it to the Megatouch and get your answer right away! Sports rivalry getting you down? Hit up Battle Arena and settle the score.
Really, it’s a shame that Battle Arena is only now on the scene; humans have been around for about 200,000 years, and we’ve been feuding with our fellow man for about 199,999 of them. Just imagine some of the ridiculous historical rivalries that could’ve been settled much more simply, if only they’d had Megatouch Battle Arena to settle their differences…
Gottfried Leibniz vs. Sir Isaac Newton
"Thou'rt a fool and a dandy, Leibniz, and my b-ball skills shall render thee unable to elocute a suitable reply!"
Calculus: friend to physicists, bane to college students everywhere, and cause of a huge historical feud between a whole bunch of men in powdered wigs and frilly collars. Leibniz and Newton were two of the biggest brains of the 17th Century, and both were doing pioneering work in mathematics, so it should come as no surprise that the two wound up doing remarkably similar work that ultimately led to the development of calculus itself.
Leibniz and Newton were aware of each other’s work for several decades after they each made their individual discoveries, and nobody seemed particularly mad about it. Then, in 1704, an anonymous article was published about Newton’s work; it dealt mainly with mathematical issues, but also accused Leibniz of having plagiarized Newton years earlier. Mathematician Johann Bernoulli, a friend of Leibniz, retorted that it was probably Newton who was pulling a fast one and stealing from Leibniz, and things got real faster than you can determine the area under a curve. (Math zing!)
Newton, proving himself to be the original Enlightenment-era gangster, went nuts over the accusation and engaged in a campaign to destroy Leibniz’s reputation (although Leibniz himself remained mostly silent on the issue). He encouraged influential friends – like the writer Voltaire – to set about making a mockery of the aging mathematician and discrediting not just his work with calculus but all of Leibniz’s writings, which spanned physics, philosophy, and mathematics. By the time of his death, Leibniz was all but forgotten, and his reputation wouldn’t be rekindled for a couple centuries.
Of course, these days most people believe that it was pure coincidence, and that Leibniz and Newton just developed the same techniques independent of each other. Whoops.
How Megatouch Battle Arena Could Have Helped
As mathematical geniuses who perfected a means to calculate the nature of curves, Leibniz and Newton would be best able to go head-to-head in a game where such skills would be valuable: like say, basketball? With Battle Hoop Jones, the two mathematical pioneers could settle their differences through simultaneous play on the ML-1′s 22″ screen, and the true inventor of calculus could be determined by their ability to sink more baskets than their opponent before the clock runs out. Their massive powdered wigs would unfortunately obscure the view of onlookers, and Newton would be distracted by thoughts about the nature of gravity while observing the motion of the balls in flight, but in the end they’d decide to set their rivalry aside and nobody would ever need to study calculus ever again. Hooray!
"Whether it's boxing or 11 Ball, Ali defeats all! I'm the greatest!"
Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier
Is it surprising that a sport that revolves around socking your opponent in the nose would create one of the greatest sports rivalries of all time? In 1971, Frazier and Ali were both at the height of their respective careers. Both men were undefeated professionally, although Ali had been stripped of his heavyweight title after refusing to be drafted and becoming a vocal opponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. There’s a very good reason their March battle was called the Fight of the Century. That first battle ended after 15 rounds with a victory for Frazier, although the fight was hard-won and both men were worse for wear after the final bell.
Three years later, Ali came up against Frazier again on his way to making another attempt at the heavyweight title, now held by George Foreman. In the lead-up to the fight, the two competitors went on ABC to discuss their history together and watch a recording of their old fight; during the proceedings, Ali began taking verbal shots at Frazier and insulting him on the air, and a minor fistfight actually broke out in the TV studio between the two men. By the time they got to the boxing ring itself, the two fighters were ready for yet another knock-down, drag-out brawl, with Ali ultimately emerging the victor and going on to fight George Foreman.
The final bout between the two men, promoted as the Thrilla in Manila, is generally considered one of the greatest boxing matches of all time. Following his previous formula, Ali took to the airwaves to badmouth and antagonize Frazier, reciting insulting poems and at one point even beating up an inflatable rubber gorilla at a press conference. The fight itself went 14 rounds before it was called in favor of Ali, but it was a narrow victory; Ali would later say he nearly died during the bout.
How Megatouch Battle Arena Could Have Helped
Rather than travel all the way to Manila, Ali and Frazier could have faced off down at their local bar over a few pints in a game of Battle 11 Ball. Frazier’s more commanding and punishing style wouldn’t help the former heavyweight champion match balls adding up to 11 nearly as much as Ali’s fabled wit and speed, and The Champ would once again emerge victorious, claiming the title of Heavyweight Megatouch Champion of the World.
Nikola Tesla vs. Thomas Edison
Just about everyone has heard of Thomas Edison, the pioneering inventor and businessman who either invented or contributed to everything from stock-tickers and the lightbulb to motion pictures and creepy talking dolls (seriously). Less well-known is his former employee and ultimate rival, Nikola Tesla, who invented an equally bewildering array of gadgets and technologies. Spark plugs? Yeah, those were invented by Tesla. Electrical induction motors? Tesla again. The first radio transmitter? Why, no, that was someone else… no, just kidding, it was Tesla.
The rivalry got started while Tesla was working for Edison’s company as an engineer. According to Tesla, Edison offered him $50,000 to redesign the company’s motors and electrical generators (a hair over $1,000,000 in our fancy-pants modern money). Tesla went about performing the work, but when he asked about his payment after the job was done, Edison claimed he’d only been kidding. Edison apparently told Tesla, a Hungarian immigrant, that he’d merely misunderstood Edison’s “American humor.” Nice one, Tom.
After quitting, Tesla developed an electrical system that he’d presented to Edison and had dismissed as “impractical”: alternating current, or AC, a competitor to Edison’s DC power systems. Edison embarked on a campaign of misinformation and publicity designed to discredit Tesla’s invention, which included spreading stories about AC-related injuries, secretly paying off the inventors of the first electric chair to use AC rather than DC, and even electrocuting an elephant, filming the event, and touring the film around the U.S. In the end, Edison spent a tremendous amount of money and resources trying to prove that DC was superior, only to admit years later that Tesla’s system was actually the better one.
How Megatouch Battle Arena Could Have Helped
Rather than nearly bankrupting himself fighting Tesla, Edison could have challenged his rival to a game of Battle Card Bandits. The ultra-competitive Edison would likely have the edge on Tesla, who grew increasingly sensitive to bright lights and sounds as he aged. As electrical and industrial pioneers, both men would be impressed and humbled by the cutting-edge capacitive multi-touch touchscreen and eye-popping HD graphics. They would ultimately have set their differences aside to work together for a more awesome tomorrow.
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