2014/2/4: Odyssey 2: Alpine Skiing, Monkeyshines, Take The Money And Run

[VideoGameCritic]

Here's a new set of Odyssey 2 reviews for your reading enjoyment.  Let me know what you think.

[darkrage61]

I LOLed at your review for "Take The Money And Run", believe it or not there's an even worse financial game in existence, "Wall Street Kid" on NES, if there was ever an award for Most Boring Game of all time, it would easily take the crown.

[LS6501]

I thought your reviews for these three was about right.
Monkeyshines is definitely the best of the three.  As a solo game it's just okay, but with two people playing it can be a lot of fun.  The animated monkeys actually look pretty good for this old 8-bit system.

Alpine Skiing is just okay - frankly I think Activision Skiing for the 2600 has both better gameplay and graphics, and side-by-side I'd prefer the Atari version.

I tried to play Take The Money and Run.  It is really unplayable and should never have been released.  I think giving it an F is too generous.  Is ther such a thing as F-..?

[Jake_JacobZu7zu71]

Whew! I had all three of these games as a kid... I liked Monkey the best of them.

Skiing,
Well this Skiing review went up two letter grades, that's an impressive second look, I know I enjoy trying to beat my best time on a few of the slopes... I like the easier one which I think is Downhill.

It's a little dated compared to 2600 skiing (more minimal and made before the 80's), but I do like the smoothness of the Odyssey 2 controls on this Skiing game. I recall this one being difficult as a kid, and didn't play it often. Nice addition of the difficulty award. It really is, but at least it's with some reward. Well graded as a C.

I felt the review could have been more convincing of the C letter grade or that the game is worth playing. Kinda wanted more for whatever reason.

Take the Money and Run,
Made no sense when I was little, and probably makes less sense now, until I read the review... oh that's what it's about... zzzzz. Does anyone enjoy this one ??? I did like the grahpics on it as a kid, but there's really nothing for a kid to do here.

Very funny review, liked it lol!

Monkey Shines,
Good review, my favorite review of the three, cuz of its top notch descriptions. This and KC Munch, as a youngster I thought being able to use the keyboard to mess with the mazes was really awesome and "out there gaming"... especially when I saw my brother lock all the ghosts up in a box with KC. What a cool way to play a looong game... 'errr I like challenge these days more, then back in the day. lol.

Monkey Shines is a pretty fun game... two player is probably best, but about as fun solo. One thing though, I doubt it's as fun or unique as Quest for Rings's two player cooperative play. I say that QUEST IS the most fun two player game on Odyssey 2. For example a few years ago, my brother and I kept going for the Quest cart, and had much more fun, where as we only played Monkey to break up our Ring games.

I don't really agree Monkey as being "hidden", as this is a somewhat common Odyssey 2 game. However, it probably doesn't credit like other titles do,... soooo, in that way it makes sense.

Overall enjoyable reviews to read Dave, and I love reading any Odyssey 2 reviews, my first ever video game or console I made any contact with.

[BrianH1]

Take the Money and Run couldn't compete for "Most Boring Game" as it is extremely hilarious (but not for the right reasons! ).

[LuckyMan1]

Critic, your Monkeyshines review is hilarious! Nice work!

I did notice a small typo though: the basic game is all your (you) need.

[scotland171]

Thanks to Dave for the do-over on Alpine Skiing. 

I already wrote my defense of the game here when it was previously rated an F: http://dmrozek.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1280982316&postcount=3 so the uptick was nice to see.

For Monkeyshines, "Just add monkey" is always a good recipe for fun, and as others have remarked, a great little coop game. Did you know if you have a third person controlling the monkey bars they are called the Great Monkey?

Which brings us to Take the Money and Run (TtMaR), an F. Since you have only one button, that it causes your lanky dude to duck his head like Shaq in Munchkin Land is novel - hey, at least its nonviolent! No shooting hostile aliens, no running with pencils. Its also a very early maze game, predating that Lord of the Maze, Pac Man, by 2 years. So, its like what Night Driver is to Pole Position...kinda. Nyah, even I don't buy that as Atari's Maze Craze was out then, and its actually kinda fun.

There is also some strategy in TtMaR- catch the bright bot (you can only catch one of them, I think), and then screw with your opponent to delay them catching the other bright one on some levels. Run from the dark robots or lure them to your opponent. You can even cooperate with your opponent, since if you can get the 'bots to collide, they return to their starting positions, which buys you time (and time is money here).

The game supposedly is a bit buggy, where if you and your opponent walk about on the top of the money box, one will fall in. I've not got it to work, but then again, I simply have been unable to play the game long enough to figure it out.

The other thing to know about this game is that its not the only Philips game that thought Economics = Fun! One of those expensive board game video game hybrids, like Quest for the Rings, is The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt. If you think TtMaR is an F, wait until you hit GWSFH and realize how expensive it was when released. Its basically Wall Street Kid for the Odyssey, but with all the pieces of a massively complex board game! If it was more well known, I think people would attribute the Crash of '83 to that one. I gotta think its a strong contender for "Most Boring 2nd Gen Game" at least.

I'm sure Gordon Gecko and Alex P Keaton both were masters of the Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt on their Odyssey 2's. My only question is where is review for the Intellivision Family Budgeting? Take that Atari - Intellivision and O2 have financial games, where's yours?

Oh, for those of you with Android products, there is an Odyssey 2 emulator app out there now. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gooh.vpacapp It has 40 games and claims that the game content is used with permission of Philips. The app developer says he is one of the original videopac programmers.  When it goes live, you can play Alpine Skiing on your android phone, without anything worrying your conscience except missing a gate.

[scotland171]

Sorry for the crazy font size shifts. A mod had recommended longer posts be written in a text editor, then cut and pasted. I used wordpad I think, and my guess is the hyperlinks fouled up some font size information. I tried to correct it, but it was getting even worse so I hit post in semi frustration. I apologize for any retina damage or intense squinting it may have inflicted, although some guy named popeye wrote he liked it that way.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=scotland17]A mod had recommended longer posts be written in a text editor, then cut and pasted. [/QUOTE]
Did he make this recommendation to the whole board? I'm guilty of some very long posts lately and have actually been typing them all on my phone. I suppose I could check them in "docs to go" and paste them from that if the format of mine is suffering, or, God forbid, if the BlackBerry browser is missing spelling mistakes.

[Rev1]

I think this was brought up when Steer posted a topic about why his posts keep getting deleted. I've never seen a widespread post stating that you should type your posts in Word or something.