I always appreciate reviews of the Odyssey 2, and here are three games I really enjoy. They all would be on my short list if showing off the system.
Amok was a driving reason to get the multicart. I think John D. created it quickly, lacking the polish of Spiceware's homebrews. As you said, it fills a niche on the O2 that was missing, and I do enjoy it. That was a big downgrade, and I know you are a Berzerk fan. Just longer play exposed more flaws?
KC Munchkin is great. I was just lucky to have this back in the day. It may be the jewel of the system, elegant gameplay, well suited to the controller, ignores the 'man shape' character used in so many games, would not be much improved with better graphics, and makes use of the usually forgotten keyboard to create mazes. Oh yes, some of these are *invisible* mazes, proof Dave does not hate invisible mazes.
Demon Attack is worth the original B though. Of the three versions (2600 - B , Inty - A and O2 - B minus), it might be the weakest, but its library does not have the competition of the others.
By the way, I don't think the two Parker Bros games (Qbert and Frogger) that got As were released in America. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the two Imagic games were the only non-Magnavox games I knew of at the time.
All the versions of Demon Attack warrant the controversial icon for the same legal reason as KC Munchkin. Atari had bought the rights to Phoenix, and here comes this upstart third party company making their own version! As seen here:
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/30/business/atari-sues-imagic-on-copyright-issue.htmlImagic settled out of court according to IGN. Its possible that KC Munchkin was a precedent, and helped Imagic just settle instead of fighting Atari.
Of special note is Demon Attacks box art on many (but I don't think all ) versions.
The flying dinosaurs (dinosaurs? No Birds? No Demons?) caught my because I had these toys as a kid! They were rubbery and flexible and I recognized them right off. The toys may have been painted and had parts glued on like some old B-Movie that Time Forgot, but these are just kids toys. The oddity is that I would think Imagic would have good programmers, but lack other parts of the business, like marketing and art - but apparently the company did spend for art.
Here is an article on Imagic box art:
http://www.boxequalsart.com/imagicpage.html , while there is a you tube video calling this an epic fail and fugly. The you tuber picked up they seemed like toys...but not that they actually were. Oh, that one in the distance is an ankylosaur...I know because I had it too.