2024/12/1: Odyssey 2: P.T. Barnum's Acrobats, Pachinko, Killer Bees

[VideoGameCritic]

These are three re-reviews, spiced up with more detail and humor. Acrobats benefitted from a slight grade boost, from C- to C.
I also used the opportunity to upgrade the screenshots.
Thoughts?

[Stalvern]

Here's the alternate version of P. T. Barnum's Acrobats. The death scene is great.

The entire teeter-totter is 16 pixels wide; the side it's safe to land on is 8 pixels.

Typos: "Im told" in that review, "grab a ball into motion" in the Pachinko review, "the 1970's" in the Killer Bees review.

[Retro STrife]

Acrobats looks pretty fun in that video Stalvern posted. I can’t remember if I’ve played any of these, but I do remember that your prior Killer Bees review convinced me to buy the game. It sounds like the most interesting game on the system. Good to see that the A holds up.

[RDReynolds]

Killer Bees is by far my favorite O2 game. And the voice for it is a MUST! Unlike the usual “oh no” and “incredible” samples, it’s all custom and totally bizarre…and awesome! Truly a complete package and one of the best games of that era hands down. Total blast to play today too!

[goldenband]

Killer Bees is good fun, definitely in my top 5 for the system. Haven't played the others much.

Apropos nothing except Odyssey²-ness, I just saw an article from 1982 in Electronic Games magazine that had Quest of the Rings at #8 in the Top 10 of reader favorite games across all consoles at the time. It was a reader poll, sure, but still wild to think of -- those were different times!

(Hmmm, I wonder if we'll ever see the long-promised reviews of the other two Odyssey² board game/video game hybrids, Conquest of the World and The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt? )

[xbox2.5]

Killer Bees makes me think of that godawful late-70s film "The Swarm," which was a box office bomb (and allegedly was more expensive to make than Star Wars).

[SpiceWare]

For one thing, the balloons are actually round! This may sound obvious, but back in the early days that was not the kind of thing you took for granted! Prior to 1980 all video game balloons were square and we liked it that way dammit!

There's an unfinished homebrew version for the 2600 called Circus AtariAge that has round balloons.

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[VideoGameCritic]

Thanks for posting this. Love the gratuitous gore!

[BlasteroidAli]

Killer Bees makes me think of that godawful late-70s film "The Swarm," which was a box office bomb (and allegedly was more expensive to make than Star Wars).

the book was great. really vicious.

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/h/arthur-herzog/swarm.htm