Page 35 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #5

main on the screen until someone accu-
mulated a better score.
Far, far better – and more controver-
sial – Challenger Series titles were yet to
come.

Copping A Look (And Feel)
The success of Pac-Man was a clear
signal: thou shalt develop a maze-based
munching game, or thou shalt fall by the
wayside. North American Phillips heeded
this unspoken warning with the creation
of the Pac-like game K.C. Munchkin. In
UFO K.C., the player controlled the title char- Freedom Fighters
acter, a blue creature consisting of an
Despite the fact that initial sales of the enormous mouth, eyes, antennae…and was, essentially, Pac-Man painted blue.
Atari VCS and the Odyssey 2 were al- not much more. Three multicolored mon- But the little blue guy did his job – espe-
most neck-and-neck at the beginning of sters chased K.C. around the maze. K. cially when Atari’s VCS version of Pac-
the race, Space Invaders for the VCS C., in the meantime, chased 12 floating Man turned out to be a train wreck of a
changed the landscape, and Atari vaulted dots around the maze, four of which game. Consumers vented their frustra-
forward. It’s not that the Odyssey lacked tions with Atari…while the video game
compelling features (such as its key- magazines, and word-of-mouth advertis-
board) or decent games…but what the ing, touted the fact that Magnavox’s Od-
Odyssey 2 did lack was a parent com- yssey 2 console (presumed dead by
pany (originally Magnavox, later Europe- many in the face of Atari’s astounding
based North American Phillips) with li- ascendancy), had a better Pac-Man than
censing muscle and a budget to match. Atari themselves. Sales of both K.C.
So the Odyssey 2 game design/ Munchkin and the Odyssey 2 console
programming team decided to approxi- itself were bolstered by this news.
mate the popular games as closely as Therefore, Atari once again proved to
they could without getting in trouble. be ahead of its time…and sued.
It almost – and I stress almost – The landmark Atari vs. North Ameri-
worked. can Phillips case was one of the first
“Look and Feel” decisions issued and
From Asteroids To Asterisks upheld by a United States court. Atari
The Odyssey 2 was infamous for its sought to prove that Phillips’ K.C. Munch-
limited graphics set. Few of the games kin infringed on the graphical look and
programmed for this supposedly ad- “feel” (presumably meaning the game
vanced platform included the extra effort play itself) of Pac-Man. It was impossible
of custom characters. Magnavox intro- for North American Phillips to win the
duced the first Challenger Series car- case, and the company had to pull K.C.
tridge, U.F.O., in 1980, and there was Munchkin from store shelves. Atari vs.
little doubt which game it was attempting North American Phillips was far from the
to approximate. In U.F.O., players con- last Look And Feel case; only a few years
trol an armed spacecraft, weaving and later, Apple Computer sued Microsoft for
diving through an ever-thickening field of the similarities between the then-new
randomly drifting U.F.O.s – actually spin- equated to Pac-Man’s power pellets, ena- Windows graphical user interface and
ning asterisk characters. The player’s bling K.C. to munch his pursuers, who Apple’s Macintosh user interface. The
ship has a shield, which can be used to would then scurry back to a rotating cen- lawsuit sparked by K.C. Munchkin was a
ram the onslaught of U.F.O.s, but an at- tral receptacle to regenerate. landmark decision, frequently revisited by
tempted ram while the shield is regener- In truth, it wasn’t a bad game. K.C. new software-related Look And Feel
ating can be fatal. The player’s ship can Munchkin introduced numerous innova- suits, and has bestowed an odd kind of
also shoot, but this too forces the shield tive twists on the basic game play of Pac- immortality to one of the best games ever
to go down for a moment, leaving the Man, including an option to edit existing made for the Odyssey 2.
ship vulnerable. Speedier U.F.O.s peri- mazes or create new ones from scratch… For some Odyssey 2 owners, there
odically streak across the screen, trying but at its heart, and nobody even at- were hopes that this meant their existing
to take the player down with a rapid-fire tempted to deny it at first, K.C. Munchkin K.C. Munchkin cartridges were now
barrage of shield-draining shots (not highly valuable collectors’ items…but
unlike the flying saucers in Asteroids). the truth was that K.C. had sold so
In some ways, given the shield element, well, the cartridges were actually
U.F.O. bears more resemblance to As- rather common. But to this day, a
teroids Deluxe than to the original. mystique remains; a presumption that
This “near beer” resemblance was since K.C. Munchkin was yanked off
nothing new for the Odyssey 2, how- the shelves, only a few exist in collec-
ever. Alien Invaders – Plus! had shame- tors’ hands. This isn’t quite the case.
lessly aped Space Invaders, and that More lamentable was the game
was only one example from the non- called Freedom Fighters!, a side-
Challenger titles released in 1980. One scrolling shooter designed to capital-
could be forgiven for thinking that the ize on the popularity of the arcade
only added “challenge” offered by the game Defender. Boasting a similar
Challenger series was the ability to enter premise – piloting a high-speed ship
a six-character name next to the highest in an attempt to pick up helpless
score achieved, which would then re- POWs encased in purple boxes while
K.C. Munchkin
Classic Gamer Magazine December 2000 35