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Speedway / Spinout / Crypto-Logic 1978


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Before I do the Odyssey^2 thing, I must report another chronogamer!

 

Xagar's Game reviews

 

Go and enjoy his blog, too, for a glimpse of . . . the future! While you're at it, start a chronogaming blog of your own. It's easy! Simply pick a system, research all the release dates, and play them in order! Okay, it's not that simple, assembling the roms/carts hardware etc can be a bit time consuming (not to mention expensive), and in some cases, figuring out the release dates is hard, but it is fun, um, often!

 

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Something I immediately like about the Odyssey^2 is its opening screen commanding me to "select game". No it doesn't tell me what's available, but that would be asking for a bit much, don't you think? (Well, yeah, the Bally does do that. Hmm, and so does the APF. BUT, both do it with less colors.)

 

Speedway

 

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I'm trying something different to provide "flavor" for these entries, namely, instead of a screenshot, or a boxshot, I think I'd like to just show the Player "avatar", if you will. That car directly above, is the shape you control in the game, Speedway, which I'm given to believe came on the pack-in cart for the Odyssey^2. A close-up shot reveals things that aren't really there: shadows on the left, sunlight from the right . . . it looks like it has a little more depth than it actually does, at least, to me, anyway.

 

This is a game similar in mechanics to Dodgem on the Bally Pro Arcade. You can move that car left or right to avoid cars that are moving down the screen on your road. It's not a bad little game, but it does become predictable. There's a repeating pattern in the descending cars every three or four cars. With a little practice, one could "beat" this game pretty quickly, or so I would assume. My son liked it well enough, but was ready to move on quickly.

 

Spin-Out

 

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Why is it so often Red vs. Blue? Is it because Red vs. Green looks too much like Christmas, or Green vs. Blue is too hard to tell apart? Dunno.

 

In this two-player game, each player controls one of those cars and races them around the track. The directional control is what one would call "absolute" as opposed to "relative". To compare to Indy 500 (Atari, VCS, 1977): Indy 500 is "relative" directional control. As the car goes in a given direction, you steer to the right, the car steers to its right. In Spin-out, you move the joystick to the right, the car goes right, if you want it to turn to its left, you move the joystick up. The car moves in whatever direction you move the joystick. It does spin to face the direction in which it moves, so that's good.

 

Another good part of this game is the collision gameplay. If you hit your opponent, one of you may "spin-out" in place for a little while, while the other continues on as if nothing happened, laughing uproariously at their opponent's misfortune. This was fun, but, if I had to compare it to Indy 500, (its closest relative), I'd have to say I didn't enjoy it as much. There weren't enough gameplay variations and the steering seemed awkward. Still, I didn't dislike it.

 

Crypto-Logic

 

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Can anyone figure out what I typed?

 

My son said he liked this one "the most on this cart" which brought a tear to my eye. I'll tell you why. He made me leave the room while he typed in his phrase and he hit the enter key to have the console scramble what he typed in. He called me back into the room and I started puzzling it out. It isn't a cryptogram, technically, it's a word scramble, spaces and all. Anyway, I started figuring out what he typed: it was "GRAET DAD". *sniff!* :) He said he liked it most because he got to type that to me. Isn't that sweet? For that reason alone, I can't say anything against this cart. :)

 

Next entry will be Las Vegas Blackjack . . . no I don't have anything sarcastic to say about it just yet. I'm trying to keep an open mind.

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Wow! Those are great, I wish I HAD written them.

 

Nope, mine is much more juvenile. Along the lines of what a five year old might think is funny.

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With Odyssey 2 games, I always find this question interesting: "Would this hold any potential for a 2600 port?"

 

I think here we have a clear "no". Indy 500 and Street Racer more than cover the racing parts already and I assume the market for 2600 word scramblers is rather limited ;)

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Eat boogers. ;)

 

 

A winner is you!!!! ;)

 

My four year-old and my eight year-old laughed heartily over it. I am such a funny daddy! ;)

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With Odyssey 2 games, I always find this question interesting: "Would this hold any potential for a 2600 port?"

 

I think here we have a clear "no". Indy 500 and Street Racer more than cover the racing parts already and I assume the market for 2600 word scramblers is rather limited ;)

 

Dang it, y'know I forgot all about Street Racer when I was playing this, definitely a closer relative than Bally's Dodgem. Here we have two potentially better machines both soundly beaten by the VCS. Bally could've made it four-player simultaneous, but they didn't.

 

It just boggles my mind to think about how Atari programmers always seem to go the extra mile or two to put variation after variation on a cart, while the Bally and Odyssey^2 programmers seem to usually be content with little more than the basic game. (well, Spin-out had four versions, but big whoop.) My experience with Bally and Odyssey^2 is limited so this assumption may change as I move through their libraries.

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It just boggles my mind to think about how Atari programmers always seem to go the extra mile or two to put variation after variation on a cart, while the Bally and Odyssey^2 programmers seem to usually be content with little more than the basic game. (well, Spin-out had four versions, but big whoop.) My experience with Bally and Odyssey^2 is limited so this assumption may change as I move through their libraries.

 

I'm not familiar with the Bally, but grew up with an O2, some friend had 2600s, and now I program for the 2600.

 

If your experiences match my memories, the 2600 will start out slightly ahead of other systems, then get overtaken, and then once third-party games take off the 2600 will leap ahead again and never look back.

 

There are a few really good games for the Odyssey in your future. Of my two favorites, one was I think the third cartridge I ever bought and the other--my favorite--I never owned but borrowed from a friend some years later.

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it was "GRAET DAD". *sniff!*

 

Awwww! That was really sweet of him. :-)

 

I liked these games. Nothing extraordinary, but very capable. It's a weird combination to have a word game together with two racing games, but this is somewhat usual in this period.

 

A close-up shot reveals things that aren't really there: shadows on the left, sunlight from the right

 

Yeah, those are just visual artifacts generated by the TV. But I agree it looks cool - it brings some depth to the graphics.

 

EAT BOOGERS has my vote too. :D

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