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Overview
Hobo was one of six different games UA Ltd. was planning on releasing for the 2600 based on their offerings for the Arcadia 2001. For those not in the know, the Arcadia 2001 was an obscure home game system released in 1982. To say that the Arcadia 2001 didn't take the market by storm would be an understatement, but it was much more popular overseas where dozens of different clones were marketed. However due to the video game crash UA decided not release any of their games, either in the U.S. or in Europe. Interestingly Hobo, along with Pleiades, R2D Tank, and Funky Fish were never released in the U.S. for the Arcadia 2001. These titles only saw release in Europe and Canada for various clone systems. Hobo is an interesting action game with three different screens. Unlike most of UA Ltd.'s games, Hobo was an original idea, not an obscure arcade port or knock off. Oddly enough the box says that the game was a 'licensed arcade game', but this is not the case and is most likely a result of using one of the other UA cartridge boxes as a template. The goal of the game is to safely guide your hobo through three screens of increasing danger in order to get to the other side of the Grand Central Railway Station and catch a train out of town. Hobo offers the standard options that most UA games did. The player can either play through all three levels in order (Game 1) , choose to play only one screen over and over again (Games 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3), or play a particular screen over and over but with infinite lives (Games 3-1. 3-2. and 3-3). This allows the player to practice a certain screen or just skip screens they don't like. The game can also be paused with the Color/B&W switch. The game even features a demo which wasn't particularly common at the time. One odd quirk in the game is that it will display the title screen between each screen and won't advance until the player pushes the fire button. This was most likely to give the player a breather between screens, but it's still somewhat odd if you're not expecting it. In keeping with the game variation numbering, each level is referred to as 1-1, 1-2, or 1-3. While each of Hobo's individual screens isn't particularly great, they do form a nice little game when put together. Hobo is one of the more advanced UA games and required 8K where most of the others were only 4K (Pleiades was also 8K). Interestingly the box art for the 2600 release of Hobo is completely different from the Arcadia release. Why UA decided to create new artwork for the 2600 port is unknown as they used the original Arcadia artwork for the other titles.
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