Game of the week: Q*bert for Odyssey 2

The glory days of the arcades, mainly the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, was full of colorful characters. You had the likes of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, just to name a couple. Then in 1982 the company known as Gottlieb came out with a new arcade game called Q*bert which featured a little, round orange character with big eyes, a funny-looking nose, and little legs but no arms.

Q*bert became quite the hit game in the arcades, so much so the Q*bert character became recognizable to much of the world. Eventually there were sequel games to Q*bert, and even an animated cartoon show for a while.

If you're not familiar with Q*bert, it's a fun little game. The player controls the Q*bert character as it jumps around on a pyramid, and each time Q*bert lands on top of a cube that is part of the pyramid that cube changes color. The goal is to get all the pyramid's cubes to be a particular color. Sounds like a simple game? Don't worry, because it gets more complicated. While jumping around on this pyramid, Q*bert has to dodge balls falling from above, monsters who chase after him and a snake that spring around all over the board. Two floating discs, one on either side of the pyramid, allow Q*bert an opportunity to temporarily escape its foes by taking Q*bert back to the top of the pyramid and away from immediate danger.

It was a great, fun game, though for some gamers it took a little getting used to the controls because the joystick was made to have Q*bert jump at angles and not move directly left or right nor up and down.

Because of Q*bert's popularity, the video game was ported to many of the home gaming consoles of the early 1980s, including the Magnavox Odyssey 2, which also went by the name of the Philips Videopac outside of the U.S.

The Odyssey 2 never sported that many third-party games, meaning games made by companies other than the creators of the Odyssey 2, but there were a handful. The company Parker Brothers released some games for the Odyssey 2, and Q*bert was one of them.

The version of Q*bert for the Odyssey 2 was kind of a mixed back for gamers. It had all the elements of the arcade game, including an introduction scene that explains how to play and some decent sounds, but the graphics just weren't all that good, at least not compared to the arcade game and most of the other console versions. Immediately noticeable is the fact the cubes on the pyramid don't like like cubes, but more like flattened squares. Then there's the colorful discs on the sides of the pyramid; here, they're not very colorful. The graphics for the Q*bert characters itself are passable, though nothing special, as are those for Q*bert's enemies.

Fortunately, the quality of play for the Odyssey 2 version of Q*bert was quite strong, much like that of the arcade version. And it helped that the Odyssey 2's joysticks were of the eight-direction variety, making it much easier than more stiff joysticks (such as those with the Atari 2600) in controlling Q*bert as it bounced around the screen.

Overall, I'd have to say Q*bert for the Odyssey 2 was fun to play, but I wish it had had better graphics, though admittedly graphics were not a strength of this home gaming system.

Game of the week: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for Atari 2600

Every Star Wars fan, whether young or old, remembers the battle scene on the ice planet Hoth in the film The Empire Strikes Back. There were rebels on the ground fighting against giant Imperial Walkers, commonly called AT-ATs, but there were also rebel pilots such as Luke Skywalker taking to the sky in snowspeeders to take the fight directly to the enemy.

It is an awesome scene. For its special effects and its drama.

When the film came out in 1980, the video game craze was just beginning to peak. So it only made sense that there would be a Star Wars video game. Right?

Of course it did.

And the very first Star Wars video game was Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back for the Atari 2600 home video game system.

Released by Parker Brothers in 1982, the game was a scrolling shooter in the tradition of the classic Defender arcade game. The player controlled a snowspeeder that flew around the sky over Hoth while shooting at approaching Imperial Walkers. The trick was to hit the body of the Walkers because shooting the legs did no good. Also, every once in a while a flashing spot would appear on a Walker, and if the snowspeeder could hit that spot it would destroy the Walker in one shot.

But the Walkers didn't just stand by and let the snowspeeder shoot at them, no no. The Walkers shot back. Generally it took more than one shot to down a snowspeeder, and the player could temporarily land a snowspeeder for repairs. Still, there often wasn't time to land because the Imperial Walkers were headed toward the rebel base, and if they reached that base the game was over and the player lost.

As was common with many Atari 2600 games, there were lots of different difficulty levels for this game, some quite tough. This almost made Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back like having multiple games in one cartridge.

This game proved popular enough that in 1983 there was a version of it made for the Intellivision home video game console.

Game of the Week: Popeye for Odyssey 2

The Atari 2600 was the hot home video game system of the early 1980s, but there were plenty of other systems, including the Odyssey 2 from the Magnavox company.

The Odyssey 2 was never a major hit in the United States, but it had solid success in Europe where it was known as the Philips Videopac G7000. This European success lead a handful of companies to make and/or port games for the Odyssey 2, including Popeye from Parker Brothers.

Popeye had been a pretty popular arcade game in the early 1980s, so popular that a port was made of it to just about every computer and home video gaming system of the time. There was even a small tabletop version of Popeye. The game was based upon the popular cartoon series of Popeye the Sailor.

The Odyssey 2 never had the greatest of graphics, often not even as good as those of the Atari 2600, which was a system commonly lambasted for not-so-great graphics. But the Odyssey 2 did have bright, vibrant colors and decent controls.

Popeye for the Odyssey 2 was guilty of simple, blocky graphics, as well. But it did have the bright colors as well as decent sound and quality gameplay.

Was Popeye ever a favorite of Odyssey 2 fans? It's hard to say since the Odyssey 2 was never the most popular of systems. But being that Popeye is one of the few games for the Odyssey 2 not actually made byMagnavox, someone at Parker Brothers must have seen the marketability potential.

Game of the Week: Frogger for Atari 2600

Back during the gold age of video games, mainly the early 1980s, one fantasy of all fans was to have the home version of a video game be as close as possible to the arcade version of the game. This rarely happened, though some games were better than others.

Also, the Atari 2600, the best seller of all the home video games systems back then, didn't offer the strongest graphics in the world. This made it even more difficult for fans to get a home version of a game that was equal to the arcade version.

There are even legends of horror about games for the Atari 2600 that were so little like their arcade cousins. The most famous culprit in this mess was the Atari version of Pac-Man, which many fans hated because it was nothing like the arcade Pac-Man.

But every once in a while there was an Atari 2600 version of a game that was quite like the arcade version. Such a game was Frogger, the cartridge released by Parker Brothers for the Atari 2600.

Frogger for the 2600 had pretty good graphics, though admittedly those graphics were not as strong as the original arcade graphics. But the sounds for the Atari version were quite impressive, and on par with the arcade Frogger.

Most importantly, the gameplay for the Atari version of Frogger was downright dead-on that of the arcade game. And that arcade experience was what many gamers wanted at home back in the day.

Was the Atari home version of Frogger perfect? No, but then few Atari 2600 games ever were, mainly because of generally sub-par graphics. But one has to keep in mind the technology level of the time, and the Atari had a lot going for it in terms of the number of games available for it and often in gameplay.

All these years later, Frogger for the Atari 2600 still stands up well, and it is a common game owned by collectors and fans of the gaming system and the game itself.