Top 30 Best Games of 1972, reviews: Baseball (Odyssey) Handball (Odyssey), Volleyball (Odyssey), Soccer (Odyssey), Wipeout (Odyssey)

Games 26-30.

List of the Top 37 Games.

Here, you will find games from a very unconventional console. The first gaming console in history. It had almost no graphics of its own, consisting of just a few pixels. The primary graphics were plastic overlays with drawings that you attached to the screen using static electricity from old TVs. Those old TVs used cathode-ray tubes, not liquid crystal displays like today's. The package also included a paper instruction manual, chips, cards, dice, and more, depending on the game.

Baseball (Odyssey).

In this game, you use real dice and a table of average results. There's a comprehensive paper instruction manual, and you need to get quite immersed in it. You then fill out player cards based on the range of average results and the number rolled on the dice. The higher the number on the dice, the better your result within the range. 

Different players have different ranges; some are stronger, some weaker. A weak player might roll a higher number on the dice and compensate for their lower range compared to a stronger player. This way, the results clash with each card drawn, and the advantage of one card over the other makes it easier to play with pixels in the active game. Thus, the outcome depends on both luck and your skills. You record the results on a separate piece of paper yourself.

Handball (Odyssey).

This game features two large pixels (players), one small pixel (ball), and a large vertical line (ball return). It's quite an unusual game because it borrows some rules from volleyball. Here, you play against a wall on the left from which the balls bounce back. The serving player is closer to the wall. You earn points on your serve.

 After losing a serve, you hand it over to the other player. You must pass the serving device to the serving player, who initiates a new round by pressing the restart button. You keep score yourself. In the game, you can adjust the ball's movement speed. The winner is the one who scores 21 points faster.

Volleyball (Odyssey).

Here, two large pixels represent players, and one small one represents the ball. There is a vertical line in the middle symbolizing the net. You must not hit the ball into it. The serving player earns a point, and if they lose, they pass the serve to the other player. Players have specific zones from which they start their movement after each serve. The winner is the one who reaches 15 points faster.

Soccer (Odyssey).

The game is one of the rarer ones, as it was only released in a European compilation, which didn't sell very well. In the game, there were 3 rows of players on each half of the field. If the ball went out of bounds, you moved one row closer to your opponent if it was out from the opponent or closer to your opponent if it was out from you. 

You could score a goal if you were positioned on your opponent's half of the field. The winner is the one who scores the predetermined number of goals agreed upon between the players. The set included a scoreboard for keeping track of the game, and the numbers on it scrolled using a wheel.

Wipeout (Odyssey).

The game consists of two parts - the screen part and the tabletop part. On the screen, only a couple of pixels are displayed, but the background in the form of a track with simple lanes adds some visual appeal. The genre can be considered as a racing game. Up to four players can play simultaneously, but taking turns, as the tabletop part of the game has 4 lanes for each player, and each has 4 colored chips. 

You need to maneuver your pixel on the screen as quickly as possible without going beyond the track's boundaries and avoiding getting hit by the enemy pixel moving from left to right. You earn 30 points for each attempt to complete the track, but penalties are subtracted: 1 point for each passage from left to right and vice versa of the enemy pixel, 2 points for each time you go out of the track, and 5 points for each hit by the enemy pixel. 

After tallying the points, you move your chip along the tabletop version of the track based on the remaining points. Each player makes several attempts until they reach the final square on the tabletop version. In the tabletop version, there are also yellow and red squares, and landing on them results in different penalties.

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