Page 20 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #6

The Probe 2000 Story licensed title in conjunction with some action figures clouds; why didn't they add any additional
and perhaps a cartoon series, to be first into produc- depth to the game? Whoever wrote this is one
In mid-1983, North American Phillips began to tion, with War Room following about two weeks later. sick puppy.’”
preview a new console, the Odyssey 3. It would Near the end of the schedule, the guy writing Power Oops. This was not a review that was likely
replace the Odyssey 2's membrane keyboard with a Lords quit in a huff. I hustled War Room up to get it to boost sales. But Harris is quick to give credit
PC Jr.-style "chiclet" keyboard, and offer new high- into production." where it is due: “Clearly they missed the addi-
resolution graphics - some of which would enhance But even late in the game, so to speak, Harris says tional depth, but they might be blameless for
existing Odyssey 2 titles. The Odyssey 3 looked like that there was talk of War Room being renamed after that. The PR department had a habit of send-
a serious bid to compete in a market that was now a movie that was particularly popular with gamers and ing games to magazines without the game’s
ruled by such consoles as the ColecoVision and fledgling computer hackers at the time. "When the rules. And if you didn't have the overlay for the
Atari 5200. It was also competing against such com- game was near completion, we also had discussions joystick buttons, you probably would never real-
puters as the Commodore 64, Apple II, and Atari's with the outfit that produced the movie War Games ize that you could enter a city.”
computers, all of which were popular with game en- about the possibility of making some changes to the Ironically, it was an Atari 2600 game - and a
thusiasts. game and licensing the movie title. This fell through world-famous feline - that seemed to convince
But with most of the Odyssey 3's early titles be- when Coleco promised the movie people they could North American Phillips to get out of the video
ing touted as "enhanced" versions of Odyssey 2 get a version of the game to market in a ridiculously game business…but it wasn't some exceptional
games, was N.A.P. shooting itself in the foot by try- short time - which didn't happen, of course." game from another manufacturer. It was a
ing to maintain backward compatibility? But Probe 2000 didn’t settle on the War Room game that N.A.P. was working on as part of the
"Yes and no. All the Odyssey 3 was, was an name quickly either. “Somewhere around here, I still Probe 2000 line.
Odyssey 2 with a character-grid video chip behind it. "The outfit in Indianapolis that we had
You could make some nice pictures with the chip, hired - I don't recall their name - to do the Pink
but you had to reuse character patterns to do it. In Panther game for Atari reported a failure in the
other words, you couldn't just draw a picture free- chips they had fabbed to do the cartridge," Har-
hand and expect to have enough character patterns ris says. "The Atari cartridge required in-
to be able to accomplish that picture on the chip," cartridge bank-switching if you wanted a very
Harris recalls. "The initial idea was to release car- large ROM in it, and this outfit had fabbed a
tridges that worked on both the Odyssey 2 and Od- chip to do that, and the chip failed."
yssey 3. What this usually meant was that the Od- But N.A.P. wasn't about to spring for the re-
yssey 3 portion of it wasn't going to be part of the fabrication of new Pink Panther ROM chips,
game play, just a snazzy background that had no and the 2600 version of the game was can-
impact on the game. This is what you would see in celled, leaving the other editions in the realm of
Killer Bees, for example. Instead of the playfield vaporware. "And since that was to be the bell-
being black, it was a honeycomb. Except then we wether of the line, N.A.P. decided to shut down
realized that the honeycomb background made it the program."
difficult to play the game, so the honeycomb was Even as Probe 2000 crashed, however,
relegated to the areas outside the play region." there was some minor consolation for Harris.
"There was also a plan to do Odyssey 3-only "War Room was already in production, and
games," Harris confirms. "The first of these was they had parts to build 80,000, so they built
called FlashPoint, by Rex Battenberg, which played ‘em. These sold out in a hurry. Regardless,
something like Defender or Robotron. The Odyssey N.A.P. wasn't going to make any more of them.
3 was never released in the U.S., though, so that I pleaded with them to make more, or to sell the
went by the wayside." title to someone else, but it was to no avail."
Later in 1983, North American Phillips also em- "And that was it for Probe 2000."
barked on a new project to spread their games
across several platforms. The rumor mill was work- A Resurgence Of Power
ing overtime, with consumers and industry observers All that fallout? From just one game?
anticipating that the Odyssey 3's capabilities would When the Probe 2000 project was shut down,
range from sharper arcade-style graphics to full according to Harris, "the stated reason was the
computer capabilities complete with a modem. But failure of the Atari 2600 Pink Panther chip fab.
N.A.P. had apparently decided not to hedge all of I got the news when my boss just happened to
their bets on their own platform. Hence, Probe 2000 have a folder with design notes through the project. mention it in passing."
was born. The original title was to have been Nuke, After Nuke, But this didn't mean that the entire group
"We were planning a series of games for Cole- to denote the two phases of play: being attacked, and was unemployed. "No one was let go. For a
coVision at the time," Harris says. "Our main goals trying to build up production before the next phase. while the group fiddled around with designing
were to shed the Odyssey image and try to come up The powers that be were more interested in generic another game system," Harris says.
with games that had more strategic depth than the names, and suggested Satellite Defense, before set- "Eventually they moved us to another building
simple shoot-'em-ups. This was our attempt to com- tling on War Room.” and put us to work on the VideoWriter - a self-
pete in a marketplace where expensive licensed Unfortunately, if the reviews had anything to say contained word processor. You see that type
titles were becoming the norm." Ironically, Harris about it, some of the press understood War Room of product in the office stores - a replacement
cites Atari's E.T. as an example of the licensing jug- about as well as they understood Killer Bees. “We, of for the typewriter."
gernaut here - while many observers credit that very course, would clip and save all the reviews of our But the stable of game designers who had
game with the downfall of the home video game games,” Harris says of himself and the other design- seen out the Odyssey 2, the stillborn Odyssey
industry at the time. ers. “Most of them were good. After all, the maga- 3, and the Probe 2000 line didn't stay there
N.A.P.'s Probe 2000 line took a swipe at the zines doing the reviewing sold advertising space to forever.
same kind of brand name licensing, but Harris re- the companies selling the games. But there was one "After a couple years, I saw the writing on
calls that the company had little or no money to War Room review that was just awful. It said some- the wall for the VideoWriter project, though,
spend on such things - and even when they did thing like, ‘This is just another blast 'em game, you and I left to work on optical recognition sys-
spring for licensed characters and properties, it was- blow up missiles approaching US cities, and that's it; tems, and eventually moved into embedded
n't always something straight out of Hollywood. we don't need another game promoting war; it's bad programming for digital TV, which is what I do
"The schedule was originally for Power Lords, a taste to show U.S. cities going up in mushroom now," Harris says. "For me, I made a con-
Classic Gamer Magazine Spring 2001 20