Odyssey 2 Reviews A-E

When it comes to all the Space Invaders (Atari 2600, 1980) clones out there, Alien Invaders is hands down the one with the most exciting... box art. It features a gigantic space serpent with four snakes for arms (!) and what appears to be an entire city encased in its domed head! Whoa. If only that grandiose vision translated a little better to the small screen. The aliens are just generic human shapes, although if you squint I guess they look like little red ETs. Below each alien are cannons that resemble orange mushrooms - and are no less lethal! Beneath those is a row of green circles that serve as an impervious barrier (they suck). Your laser cannon at the bottom is shaped like a wide pyramid. When destroyed a little guy escapes who can run up to a remaining shield to form another cannon. So you essentially have four lives per round. It's hard to take aim at the aliens as they abruptly shift from side-to-side. Instead of a conventional scoring system (which would have been a good idea) your goal is to win ten rounds. You score a single point by clearing a screen of invaders, and they score by depleting your set of lives. You know it's a dumb system when you nail that mother ship at the top and don't have a damn thing to show for it. And then she regenerates! It all sounds perfectly awful, but the true test of any game comes when you actually try to beat it. It's no War of the Worlds, but Alien Invaders is certainly a challenge. Enemy cannons strike like lightning, and when the mother ship descends with that all-seeing eye, things get intense. I noticed that shooting just along the edge of each shield provides some much-needed cover. Upon losing all your cannons, your dude is just left standing there waiting to be shot. I did have one dramatic moment when I lost my last cannon just before hitting the last alien for the win. I ended up losing 10-8, but that might be for the best, because after beating Alien Invaders Plus there would be little incentive to play it again. And I'm still trying to figure out what the "Plus" is. © Copyright 2020 The Video Game Critic.

Back in 1978 there was no Mortal Kombat (Genesis, 1993) or Night Trap (Sega CD, 1992) so parental advocates were forced to complain about Death Race instead. This 1976 Exidy arcade game challenged players to run down "gremlins" with race cars. Since these gremlins looked vaguely like people, community activists construed it as an all-out war on pedestrians! Nevermind the fact that there are no roads in the game. 37 years later Death Race has finally arrived home. The packaging offers fun artwork depicting two skeletons enjoying a joyride through a graveyard. Tucked inside the box is a clip from a Eugene Oregon newspaper condemning the game. Among the experts cited is a behavioral scientist (is that even a thing?) who explains the player "is no longer just a spectator, but now an actor in the process of creating violence." If only this game was half as twisted and demented as the article makes it out to be, I'd probably like it a lot more. In reality Death Race is a pretty tame head-to-head duel. Each 99-second contest begins with two cars on the bottom of the screen. The slick car designs and excellent steering hints that the Odyssey 2 might be a good candidate for an Indy 500-style racer. Running down the two scampering figures causes cross-shaped gravestones to appear in their place. It's a shame the voice module wasn't used to simulate screams. The crosses form obstacles that are really, really easy to get stuck on. The collision detection is unforgiving and it takes a few seconds just to get back up and running again. The head-to-head competition is moderately fun and you can also play solo for score. Death Race isn't much of a spectacle, but there's some novelty value here. © Copyright 2015 The Video Game Critic.