K.C. Munchkin!

K.C. Munchkin! is probably the most famous (or infamous) Odyssey² game. Capitalizing on the mass hysteria following the release of the arcade Pac-Man, K.C. Munchkin! features a small furry creature with a huge mouth running around a maze eating dots while being pursued by ghost-like creatures. At its release, K.C. was the only Pac-Man style game for home consoles. This angered Atari, who had purchased the rights to Pac-Man. Atari sued, and won a temporary injunction prohibiting the sale of K.C. Munchkin!, which was later overturned, but ultimately upheld. Luckily, this did not stop millions of K.C. cartridges from reaching happy players prior to the court rulings.

Is K.C. just Pac-Man? Hardly. It features a lot of differences, the most obvious of which concern the dots. Unlike Pac-Man, there are only 12 dots on screen, but they move around the maze. This adds an entire new level of challenge, as you can hardly plan your dot-consuming path, since the dot may decide to take a detour. Another innovation is the different types of mazes you can play on. One maze contains walls that periodically change positions. Another maze features walls that vanish while K.C. is in motion. And if that's not enough, you can create your own maze using the keyboard. The only limitation of K.C. Munchkin! is imposed by the Odyssey²'s graphics capabilities. Since its screen resolution is poor, the maze is a bit small. But that doesn't stop K.C. Munchkin! from being one of the best Odyssey² games ever created – and it's far superior to Atari's pathetic 2600 translation of Pac-Man.

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