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By Any Other Name:
2 2
The Odyssey Challenger Series
The Odyssey Challenger Series
It didn’t take anyone long to figure out, after the stellar success of Atari’s VCS adapta-
tions of Space Invaders and Asteroids, that the most successful home video games in the
early eighties would be riding the coattails of their coin-operated cousins. And, with the
impressive returns on Atari’s investment in other companies’ titles (as well as popular
games from their own arcade division), the coin-op licensing business became very expen-
sive. Mattel was able to score some minor victories, licensing Data East games such as
Burgertime and Lock ‘n’ Chase, but for the most part, Mattel’s licensing coups were at-
tached to other entertainment franchises – pro sports entities (almost all of Mattel’s
sports games had some kind of logo attached to it, be it Major League Baseball or the
NFL), non-video games (Dungeons & Dragons), and films (the trilogy of games based on
Tron). Coleco was quick to do deals with Nintendo, Exidy and Universal.
And the Odyssey 2?
Well...they had the Challenger Series...
By Earl Green
Classic Gamer Magazine December 2000 34
