2012/10/4: Odyssey 2: Football, Freedom Fighters

[VideoGameCritic]

Here is an example of me righting some wrongs.  My initial review of Football was a little off because I wasn't playing the right mode.  My original review of Freedom Fighters was way off.

Comments??

[scotland171]

First off, thanks Dave for the re-review from an old Ody 2 gamer who played these games ad nauseum in days of yore.   Would keeping your older score in the review verbage at all help or confuse others?  

For Football, while I was hoping for a C-, but I can see the frustration with the interceptions.  With more playtime, you would find your quarterback can confuse the defense by wiggling the controls before contact.  This means that the defensive player has to choose between going deep and covering the receiver and risking bigtime run yardage, or just play the passing lane between QB and receiver to be in position to tackle the QB before he gets big distance but risk the completion - remember, the defensive player is the entire secondary.  This adds some more (likely unintended) strategy here than first meets the eye. Also, hitting your own player is a risk in real football, so I think that part was fine. Maybe its not too late for that C- ?

For Freedom Fighters, I used to just play with the second joystick only in zippy warp mode sometimes. That converts the game from a one-screener like Asteroids (which is fun) into a side scrolling schmup (also fun).  Okay, I let a lot of purple encased people get by to never be freed, and I shot a good number of them too, but it was a totally different feel to the game. You could enforce your own rules about if you let too many purple people get by to add some thrills and increase difficulty.  Maybe this was unintended, but you still got two games in one!  Freedom Fighters, like UFO and KC Munchkin, was quite a respectable latter day game from whomever Magnavox was contracting with to make their games.  Its a shame Magnavox or those contractors did not produce more like these earlier in the lifecycle.  

Thanks again.  Maybe this makes up for giving those near perfection marks to those modern FPS games you were down on yourself for in 'best decade for video game' discussion.

[VideoGameCritic]

Thank you for reviewing my reviews.  I do not keep my old reviews, because I usually hate them.  However, I do try to recycle any funny lines or key points from the original review.

I will try to employ your strategy the next time I play O2 Football.  I don't see myself raising the grade, but on this site you NEVER KNOW!

As for Freedom Fighters, it's actually three games in one if you count the "game 0" dodge-em variation.  Good stuff.

If there are any other O2 games I missed the boat on, or should elaborate further on, please let me know. 

[BorntoRun1]

I usually play Freedom Fighters in the "side-scrolling" mode, and prefer it that way, but it's pretty fun either way.

[Glitchologteam1]

you say for Football that the game field goal feature was impressive for 1977, despite the fact the game was made in 1978

[Allpaul1]

Great reviews! The football review is fair, but its good you tried it on pro mode.. I can't imagine why it's not the default setting!

[Jake_JacobZu7zu71]

Played Odyssey 2 as a small kid, and I do remember Freedom Fighters... I'm much better at this game as an adult...
I think as a kid, I would just be thrilled to nap one of the purple men floating around.

I don't recall playing Football ever, though I do own it.

The review upgrades are nice with better grades and more accurate descriptions..., and even if VGC's friend said
''life's too short for O2 sports games''... I only half agree with that...

I think many of the early Atari VCS ones were worse like Football, Mini Golf or Home Run.
The real sports games for 2600 haven't aged well, Baseball or Football
but I do like the Volleyball one and Tennis is okay... and does include CPU,
such as it is...