Out of this World!/Helicopter Rescue!

Are you ready to play a thrill-packed, exciting, challenging game with fantastic graphics and sound? Well, then, stay away from this cartridge! These have routinely been called the worst Odyssey² games ever.

Out of this World is Lunar Lander with all the complexity removed. There's no steering, no rotation, no terrain -- it's a lander game stripped to the bare essentials of fuel and gravity. Your ship starts at the top of the screen (in orbit), and plummets toward the ground at the bottom. All you have to do is depress the ACTION button to apply rocket thrust; a deft hand will prevent a fiery crash. Naturally, the use of your rockets consumes fuel. The trick is to apply as little thrust as possible, so that you can conserve enough fuel to blast off again and dock with the mothership -- the pink arrow at the top of the screen.

Out of this World requires two players. Your task is to dock with the mothership before your opponent does. Because it's a head-to-head challenge, the game is a bit more fun than it deserves to be. However, with no controls beyond the fire button, there's not much room for finesse and the gameplay is quite limited, making Out of this World tiresome after only a few plays. Multiple game options, which feature different levels of gravity, help slightly. Despite this however, Out of this World is fairly disappointing overall.

Yet, as limited as Out of this World is, Helicopter Rescue is worse. Fly a helicopter over a stranded man, drop a basket for him to climb in, then fly him to a landing pad. Then, do it again. And again. And again. This game takes a simple task (which isn't too fun to start with), and makes you keep doing it for two minutes, or until you get bored and unplug the console in disgust, whichever comes first. Calling this a "game" is almost questionable; sweat-shop workers and industrial robots are also required to repeat the same action over and over again, but I don't think you would consider it fun. No, in Helicopter Rescue, it's far more enjoyable to simply crash your helicopter repeatedly and laugh like a maniac at the helpless victim. The only notable aspect of this game is that it features what may be the largest sprite in classic games videogames (that 'copter is big!).

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