Cat & Mouse Overlay: What's a five-letter word for devoured?Picture a crossword puzzle grid (see overlay left). You know the type, empty squares (for the letters) and full squares (uh, not for the letters). The players start with their Player Spots on the Mouse and Cat icons respectively, which are already placed in the maze. In one corner of the maze is a "mouse house". (Yes, that's what "they" call it). The mouse has to get to his house before the cat gets him, but must do so by moving through only the white squares of the maze. The cat must obey the same limitation. If either the cat spot or the mouse spot overlap with one of the dark parts of the crossword puzzle-like landscape, they have to go back to their starting position.

(NOTE: Please keep in mind that the players are controlling glowing white squares that represent a cat and a mouse and are not controlling the cute little icons you see on the Überlay reproduced (meticulously and at great cost of time) above.)

The further the mouse gets before the cat "eats" him (tags him), the higher his points are. Score is determined by little numbered stickers that go around the top and right side of the Überlay. The score is the sum of the pair of numbers at the end of the column and row of the square where the mouse is eaten. (I didn't use my stickers so as not to "un-mint" my mint sticker sheet, but you get the idea.) No instructions are given in the manual for the eventuality of the mouse actually making it to his house alive. Either we are to assume he earns the maximum points (plus a day's respite from constantly living in terror), or the somber bastards who designed the game just had no hope for the poor little mouse seeing his house ever again.

Our playthrough of the game wasn't terrible due to the fact that my son and I both have a pretty morbid sense of humor. However, it wasn't all giggles. We started by cheering for the cat, but we soon realized, it isn't about the cat. It's all about the mouse! He is the one earning the points. He is the one that must excel at what he does and the Player that does the mouse part best, wins. However, the one problem was that we were simply unable to identify with the mouse. So, we changed the game to "Meowth and Pikachu" (my son's idea). We made it so Meowth goes after Pikachu but when he catches Pikachu, Meowth has to get away before Pikachu electrifies him into a smoking pile of ash. (get it? Ash? Heh.) We enjoyed ourselves for about five minutes before wondering what else we could be doing with our time that would make the world a better place in which to live. My son also suddenly wanted to play Pokemon Red. Go figure.

We had fun, but it was really due to our attitude towards the game and my son's acceptance of the fact that 'dear old dad' is going to make him play every single one of these Odyssey games, so he should try to make the most of it. (Oh, he is so going to write an embarrassing book about me someday.)

Since we didn't have fun until after we essentially licensed the game to a franchise from roughly twenty-five years in the future, I can't give the point to Cat and Mouse. Ultraman gets it this time.

The Score: Ultraman: 4, Odyssey: 2.5

Next entry is about the first home videogame “adventure” ever: Haunted House!