I had one of these and am actually wearing an Odyssey2 t-shirt as I write this. I literally advocated for it to friends and convinced a few of them to choose it over the Atari 2600 so we could swap games. One feature overlooked in this video was the quality cartridge packaging: Besides the awesome graphics, the boxes opened like a book with a cutout area behind the cover to store the cart. They protected your games and looked great displayed on the shelf! I was lucky that our local mall had an actual Magnavox store which always carried all the titles, including rare ones that you couldn’t find in other stores.
have one of these in my storage unit, bought decades late. my family was a TI99-4A house, and man that was an amazing machine for its day. my best fiends dad was a vp at magnavox, so he got all the Odyssey stuff, which i also loved. quest for the ring was the best. my friend even has an unreleased Odyssey 3, which i always thought was cool
At my high school, we had an Odyssey2 in our TV studio. Its only function was a crawl that ran on the in-house cable channel. Every morning, for many years, we typed in messages of birthdays and other notices that ran before our newscast ran. That membrane keyboard heald up well. It was still in service in 1988. If I remember correctly, it also put out a proper interlaced RS170a NTSC signal, unlike the Apple II or Atari's of the era.
We had this. We discovered that you could partially insert some game cartridges to find strange game glitches. Like the racing game where two cars raced loops around an enclosed track. Partially inserting that game created gaps in the track wall allowing the cars to drive off screen for a while until showing up on the other side of the tv
Haha nice! My friends and I figured out a similar trick on Atari VCS games where if you turned power off and rapidly flicked it back on and repeated this a few times you would get a game in a corrupted state that would have bizzare things like an all-black Pitfall Harry running along the top of the screen in Pitfall and various other things in other games. It didn't work on all carts and many games had only useless but interesting things happen but Vanguard was actually more fun when 'fried' (as we called it) this way.
If you switch cartridges with it ON (Yep I know - not recommended at all!) its possible to mix games. We could glitch munchkin with the race game and the cars could race around the maze.
I did this too! Games like "Invaders from Hyperspace" had the planets zoom off the screen for instance. What was interesting is it was repeatable to get the same effect.
I started my retro gaming journey with the Odyssey 2 last year. I felt like emulation of the O2 game didn't really capture the experience like I wanted, so I got a real one. I now have most of the 02 games (no Voice...yet) as well as a 2600+ and over a hundred carts for that as well. It was a great start to what has become a rewarding hobby/collection.
We had one and so did our cousin. He had a 2600 too but he played his Odyessy2 more, overall. We really did love ours, it seemed SO futuristic with it's keyboard.
The Odyssey2 was my families first video game system. While my cousins had the Atari 2600, I was creating my own mazes in KC Munchkin and dodging boulders in Pick-Axe Pete. My Father and I played the heck out of Quest for the Rings and I will never forget how excited he was that the helicopter sounded like a real helicopter in Helicopter Rescue. I will always regret trading the entire collection for a single copy of Super Mario Bros 2 for the NES.
I still haven't gotten the chance to play The Quest for the Rings with friends yet since I picked it up! I agree that editing the mazes in both K.C. games is so much fun though, it adds so much replay value to the games.
We had one of these back in the day, my parents got it for free for attending a demo for a time share. Another family had one they weren’t using and gave us all their games. My original one is long gone but I’ve had fun collecting it all back.
In the UK I had this machine badged as the Philips Videopac. Had the Quest for The Rings game which was beautifully packaged with the board game but I was too young to understand how to play it!
Amazing! this was my first real console when I was a Kid... me and my sister played millions of times with this console and I have fond memories about it.
I loved my odyssey 2! I inherited it from my older cousin in 1982 or 3. I even had the add-on talking -box and "You Type, It Talks". I had the one where the controllers were hardwired. I also had that sweet Quest for the Rings set and 5 other games. God i loved that thing!!❤
Pretty good look into the Oddysey2! In 1980-81 The local 'Woodward's' department store had a demo unit in the toy section with a bunch of carts locked on a chain and a few of us little kids who discovered it would play for HOURS after school on it. This was a different era of course. The games were much more primitive then the Atari we all coveted (only a couple of us had one at the time, I didn't get mine until 1982) but they were different and sometimes quite fun, as noted. We all also noted the re-used assets and figured the 'same guy' had written most of the games. The port of Atlantis was surprisingly decent for this beast. It's a shame more games didn't take advantage of the keyboard. A 'Star Raiders' type of game with lots of ship controls would have been a system seller I always thought. Also thank you for introducing me to the voice module, I had no idea it existed at all! It definately improves 'Attack of the Time Lord' and the villian now reminds me of the cyclops alien from the arcade version of Star Fury. Quest for the Rings was AMAZING and should have helped drive sales more then it did, it was TV advertised even. There was at least one other great board game/video game hybrid for this system but I forget the name of it now. A wonderful concept for family gaming that sadly never caught on. I imagine they were pretty expensive to make though, and Atari, Mattel and Coleco were all about the bottom line then. One of many reasons the market went splat in 83. Great video, may it get many views!
The Odyssey 2 is my favorite 2nd gen console. It is also the first console I ever played. The thing that surprises me is that one programmer Ed Averett created 24 of the games and all 3 board games. He also created KC Munchkin. Several of the games he designed in less than 2 months.
Great to know his name ! As a little kid playing much of the library at the time (the carts were all chained together at a demo kiosk allowing people to check them all out) my friends and I all noted the similarity of game style and re-used assets and figured 'the same guy' wrote all the games. Looks like we were mostly right, especially as the better 3rd party games like the Atlantis port hadn't come out yet. However the board games in particular were absolutely fantastic and could have been a whole new market had the bigger players like Atari and Mattel and Coleco gotten in on it, but I assume it was too expensive and would have resulted in less profit per game, which was all the big 3 at the time were interested in.
I had the Odyssey 2, my first game box. I used to play a car racing game. I learned that I could race indefinitely without even watching the screen. It was a certain pattern. Mine had the black joysticks. It was from this video that I remember that… primarily due to the asterisk-like edges of the joystick. This created grooves, which helped me make sure I knew how I was moving the stick. We were poor at the time and my parents would never justify buying anything like this from a store but I think it was picked up from a second-hand store around 1982-1983.
Great video!!...had one as well as a kid..great underated console!!..My Dad would come home from work and play K.C. Munchkin til sometimes late at night...beautiful memories..
Still have mine in the box along with the voice module and most of those games. Pickaxe Pete and Attack of the Timelord were the two I spent the most time playing.
Had this, including the Voice add-on. UFO was our favorite game. We also had a really weird cart that could be used for kiosk information displays, and one for assembly programming.
Hearing the voice really takes me back - I had a wired revision with the voice module given to me as a kid back then. I recall it having great speech mannerisms and sounds it could only approximate. The "monster. attack. open. fire." from Sid the Spellbinder is burned into my memory.
I bought mine in 1980 and I still have it. It is connected to my modern tv via a VCR to demodulate the fm signal, and a retrotonk 2x pro. I wish I hadn’t sold the bulk of my games back in the day. I do have 5 games including Quest for the rings. :)
I still play Killer Bees in an emulator once in a while. It’s a singularly weird game, but it gets fast and hard. The weirdest thing about a lot of their arcade-style games is the concept of only having one life, instead of 3-5 lives like pinball or most arcade games of the era. It means that one unlucky saucer appearance ends your game of UFO.
i had the O2 & the Voice module and dozens & dozens of games .... still have them in the garage including all the game boxes & instructions. i had 2 of the ultra games , the Ring Quest & WW3 games.
My family first had a Colecovision. Not sure when but think my dad got it cheap and with a bunch of games like defender and Smurf adventure. Some time later he randomly came home with a NES. It was awesome at the time.
I've only seen one other review of the Odyssey 2, so this was cool. My parents bough us one of these in 1981 or '82, and at that that point, I'd never played a video game before. I liked playing Pit Fall with my brother, but when the family played together, it was always Golf; which I sucked at.
Was at a swap meet over the weekend and found an Odyssey 2 bundle which after some hesitation I picked up as I have been really getting into this era of gaming, then this video gets recommended to me and I haven't even done any research on the system yet......... spooky....... Did get about 9 games with it including Killer Bees, Cosmic Conflict (need to read up more on this one couldn't get it to move) and Attack of the Timelord all with boxes and most with manuals. Rebuilding the box for Timelord as it was badly crushed. It is a model with the hardwired controllers and the left controller drifts a little to the right but it stops when I wiggle the controller during gameplay so it may just need more thorough cleaning inside.
Guess it was a good time for me to put out my video on the Odyssey² then! That's a solid line-up of games, Killer Bees is probably my second favorite Odyssey² game after Attack of the Timelord and actually is one of the rarer titles on the console. I love the little particle effect that it does for both the swarm you control as well as the enemy green ones.
The odyssey was very popular overseas and even got a more advanced system plus some cool add-ons that the US never got . The musical add on for example is way cool and seeing Attack of the TimeLord with extra graphics is kinda mind blowing.
I have one of these! I have the voice module with the software. Im waiting for the right game lot. I cant wait to play it. For more than I could see, you have a really nice collection. I have like 30 consoles but I only have a studio apartment. So, I have to be picky of what I collect.
My family got a free one for attending a sales pitch for Thousand Trails campgrounds. We didn't sign up for anything, but the guy brought our system out just the same. I had great fun with that thing. I later got a 2600, but I think I have more fond memories of the Odyssey 2
Our mom bought us the Odyssey2 for Christmas when we'd asked for the Atari. Initially we were disappointed, but that didn't last long. The games are incredibly more creative. KC Munchkin, for example, was leaps and bounds better than Atari's Pac Man adaptation in every way. Plus the ability to create your own maps --heaven!
We had one as well. My sister and I wanted a game system and my dad found this for sale in the paper from someone. It was certainly interesting to be the kids with the oddball game system.
I am not a fan of the hardwired controllers at all, I much prefer the earlier silver ones. The only reason why I own both versions is because my console with the silver controllers has a rather messy video signal, the later Odyssey² with the black controllers outputs a much cleaner image.
You have enough cartridges to make a circle. Start with two cartridges back to front. Set them on a table on one side. Pinch the handle ends together so the connector ends spread apart. Keep adding cartridges until you have a circle. I forget how many it takes to go around but they fit perfectly. Intentional part of the design or a neat accident of the cartridge shape? In the early 1980's my mother entered some second chance drawing and won an Odyssey 2. For some reason she was sent two of them. So we sold one to get money to buy more games. Later I bought a second one with worn out controllers so I cut the cords off and attached DE9 ports to use 2600 compatible joysticks. The added length of the Odyssey's cords was a nice thing to have so my sister and I didn't have to sit so close to the TV. The voice module wasn't a speech synthesizer. Everything it could say was built in, with a vocabulary of words and phrases, letter, numbers, and phonemes to build words not in its vocabulary. The vocabulary wasn't recorded with care to have it all sound the same. A funny example is in Smithereens! when it says "Come on turkey. Hit it!" Come, on, turkey, and Hit it! sound like they're each said by a different person. What would be a neat hack is making a new voice circuit that functions identically to the original but plays newly recorded 16 bit versions of all the sounds in the original. Even better would be to give it two sound sets. One recorded to better blend together, and one that duplicates the uneven inflections and tones of the original. The Intellivoice speech module is simply a digital to analog converter feeding into an analog audio pin in the cartridge slot. All the sound was hand tuned digitized audio in the cartridges. They were so tight on space the sound used variable bitrate encoding, with every word painstakingly tweaked to be able to pack it all into the small space. IIRC the first voice game was B-17 Bomber, in just 4K. All other voice games were 8K to provide more room for the voice audio.
I got one for Christmas. The games were really well done. K,C, Munchkin was a world apart from Atari's pathetic version of Pac Man. The Quest For The Rings, the only "master strategy" game they released before they went out of business, used game tokens and a keyboard overlay and was way beyond anything you could do on the 2600 ( Intelevision had a great D&D type game, except for those awful controllers).
actually there was a Wall Street game that was also a master strategy game, with board and keyboard overlay.... sorta like teaching actual finance mixed with game theories. got it just as they went under... Montgomery Wards, Babbages, Dillards, Toys r Us were our final liquidation runaround my parents let us try in finding the last games.
Ah, memories of the mall as a kid. There was Sears of course. It had early pre-cartridge video game systems, then eventually their version of the 2600. But there was also the piano/organ store, which for some reason had an Odyssey 2 you could play. For fun, show this post to “kids today” and see how many things they’ve never experienced.
My dad got one for Christmas of 1978 because he had a friend that worked for Magnavox in the 70's and 80's. Dont know what possesed him to get it, but he did. I wasnt too familiar with video games yet seeing as how I'd only played 2 at that point. So it sat for about 3 years. My sister sometimes played it. But I never touched it until we got KC Munchkin for Xmas of 81. By that time, i was obsessed with anything Pac-Man or Pac-Man like. I finally started playing it. Better games started coming out around that time. For Christmas of 1982, my dad bought me a 2600 and Pac-Man. That pretty much spelled the end for my o2. Think it ended up getting lost in a move in the early 90's.
Freedom Fighters was an excellent game, and is the main reason for owning a Oddessey 2. I am still on a hunt for both the console it self, and the game, just for that reason 😄 Hopefully, my cousin still has his hidden away. I know he had both that, and the Atari 2600, and finally a SEGA 16. But I don't know if he traded him "up" on the console scale, or if he kept the older ones. A spark of hope to find the OD2 was last summer when I found the cartridge for Bee Hive (?) at his childhood home, while visiting his father together with my dad. (And just to be clear, his dad was going through a lot of stuff in the attic, and there was that cartridge... So it wasnt something I just looked for by my self) 😄
I picked up one years ago from a Yard Sale. It was broken and no idea how to fix it. Sold it on e-bay. Somebody got a nice system with games in boxes. Ah 20+ years ago memories.
My cousins had one of these back in the day. it was pretty solid. Also, I had a complete original Magnavox Odyssey system many years ago, including a light gun and all the Rom cards and screen overlays.I sort of wish I still had it, even though it was not very impressive overall, and the controllers were strange and horrible.
I've never played with an Odyssey 2. Despite having a keyboard, it always gave me the impression of being more primitive than the Atari 2600. Granted, a lot of early 2600 games were equally as primitive, but as time went one, the games increased in complexity and graphics. I've thinking of stuff like Tunnel Runner, Space Shuttle, Midnight Magic, etc.
The one thing I really missed here is the C7010 chess module. I used to have a G7000. The chess game had a large module with its own processor and ram. Not sure if they had it in the US for the Odyssey or if it is compatible with the Odyssey.
At the time I was really into the Colecovision, and I still think it had the best graphics of its generation. The Odyssey 2 was released here as the Philips Videopac. I saw a lot of publicity for it when I already had a Colecovision. It seemed really primitive, and looking at this video confirms my opinion. I didn't like the membrane keyboard, you never knew for sure whether you really pressed a key or not. Also, by including it, it takes away from the feeling of being a console and gives you the impression this is more like a home computer. The machine couldn't compete as a games console due to its limitations, and as a home computer it wasn't adequate either. The games mostly seemed boring, and lacked variation. I didn't know at the time of these sprite limitations, but now I understand why that is. Also, because of the use of letters and numbers, the distinction between a game and educational software becomes less clear either. As a child/teenager you wanted to play games, and not get educational software disguised as a game.
I had one, and even had the optional Voice module that sat on top of the unit. Got it mainly to play KC Munchkin which was a far superior console adaptation of Pac-Man (anyone forced to play PM for the 2600 knows what I’m talking about).
That was something I didn't really touch on in my video here, Magnavox actually beat Atari to the market with KC Munchkin before the 2600 port of Pac-Man was even released, there was a big legal kerfuffle between Magnavox and Namco because of it and Magnavox had to eventually pull KC from the shelf (but not before a ton of copies were already sold). And yeah, despite the differences in gameplay from the arcade version of Pac-Man, KC plays FAR better than that great turd of a 2600 port 😆
@@StevesAssortedStuff you’re absolutely right. I got my console and KC cartridge in 1981, and the Voice in 1982. I remember the controversy surrounding copyright infringement - which made me even happier I already had my copy.
My father bought two of these because there was a mail in rebate that had a value more than one units...so he bought two of them. We still have them, one is still in the plastic and the other has been opened.
Killer Bees is easily my second favorite O² title. The closest thing that it reminds me of is maybe Berserk, but yeah it's still a tremendously weird but very charming and unique game.
I got one of these in 1993 when you could get these sorts of things for $5 or $10 at a flea market. Had an Atari 2600 an NES and other things thanks to the prices back then. Not anymore! Makes me feel like I'm handling gold instead of a video game system, with how prices went so far up.
Nice collection, sad that one day these machines will all fail...Another reason to support emulation efforts because if not, these experiences will be lost to time.
You forgot to mention the REAL "1st cartridge-based console", the first Odyssey game console. It came with 6 cartridges, I just bought one complete in the box at the flea market last Sunday for $80, have it sitting on the dresser next to me, haven't had a chance to hook it up and test it yet.
I like the way the ship explodes on UFO. And the foil boxes are awesome. And I like the way the guy freaks out on Golf when you hit a tree. But most of the games are really bad. We had one of these when I was 5. I never liked sports games, but I remember thinking Golf and Baseball were the only games we had that didn't get old super fast. It was fun making levels for KC Munchkin but the actual game sucked. I learned to play Blackjack on an Odyssey 2 so I guess that's cool. 😂 There were 3rd party games like Atlantis that were decent, but most of the Odyssey 2 games were made by one guy. They clearly spent more money on the box art than on the software. It doesn't matter if the hardware was better than the 2600 if they didn't have anybody making decent games. They must've totally given up on it by the end of 1981 or early 1982. I never saw an Odyssey 2 game that was even close to the quality of River Raid or Pitfall, and it was totally outclassed by the Colecovision/Vectrex.
That membrane keyboard looks painful to use. 😮 It's fascinating to think about an era when there were no standardized connection ports for peripherals, and when people couldn't be expected to have a keyboard lying around.
The Odyssey 2 was $179 in 1978! It's amazing that they could give you a membrane keyboard for that price. The Atari 400/800 were $550 and $1,050. The Atari 400 had a membrane keyboard and the 800 had a good keyboard. Not many things had detachable keyboards unless they were huge like the original IBM, or had a clever design like the Osborne 1 or C64 SX. No but you're right. It was a pretty terrible keyboard to try to type on. 😂
@RaquelFoster My brother loves typing on flat laptop keyboards, but those keyboards give me arthritis and carpal tunnel just looking at them. I recently started using a Dygma Defy (split, tented, orthagonal, and programmable mechanical keyboard), and the difference is night and day. My fingers and wrists feel no pressure or pain after typing!
My parents bought us this instead of the 2600. There were some legitimately good games, and ironically KC Munchkin was a better Pac-Man game than what Atari had. My personal favorite was Pick Axe Pete.
Ugh. My parents and the shop talked me into having one of these when I wanted an Atari. Terrible. The space invaders game finally broke me, I sold it, got the 2600 and never looked back.
Given the whole convert-your-game-console-to-a-computer meme of the late 70s, early 80s, don't know why the 02 didn't do better vs the 2600, since the 02 had a keyboard included. Add on keyboards for the Intv and vcs were the Big Thing, talked up at ces and videogame magazines of the day incessantly. Of course, by 1984 , the atari and commodore 8 bit computers, and then the amiga, st post 85, took over the 80s. By 1992, x86 pcs took over everything
This was my first way to play video games at home. The G7000. Did not like it very much because even in 1980 when I got it, it was bad in terms of games and graphics, i replaced it with the zx81 and later the spectrum.....and learned programming. My future job.
I had one of these and am actually wearing an Odyssey2 t-shirt as I write this. I literally advocated for it to friends and convinced a few of them to choose it over the Atari 2600 so we could swap games. One feature overlooked in this video was the quality cartridge packaging: Besides the awesome graphics, the boxes opened like a book with a cutout area behind the cover to store the cart. They protected your games and looked great displayed on the shelf! I was lucky that our local mall had an actual Magnavox store which always carried all the titles, including rare ones that you couldn’t find in other stores.
have one of these in my storage unit, bought decades late. my family was a TI99-4A house, and man that was an amazing machine for its day. my best fiends dad was a vp at magnavox, so he got all the Odyssey stuff, which i also loved. quest for the ring was the best. my friend even has an unreleased Odyssey 3, which i always thought was cool
At my high school, we had an Odyssey2 in our TV studio. Its only function was a crawl that ran on the in-house cable channel. Every morning, for many years, we typed in messages of birthdays and other notices that ran before our newscast ran. That membrane keyboard heald up well. It was still in service in 1988. If I remember correctly, it also put out a proper interlaced RS170a NTSC signal, unlike the Apple II or Atari's of the era.
We had this. We discovered that you could partially insert some game cartridges to find strange game glitches. Like the racing game where two cars raced loops around an enclosed track. Partially inserting that game created gaps in the track wall allowing the cars to drive off screen for a while until showing up on the other side of the tv
Haha nice! My friends and I figured out a similar trick on Atari VCS games where if you turned power off and rapidly flicked it back on and repeated this a few times you would get a game in a corrupted state that would have bizzare things like an all-black Pitfall Harry running along the top of the screen in Pitfall and various other things in other games.
It didn't work on all carts and many games had only useless but interesting things happen but Vanguard was actually more fun when 'fried' (as we called it) this way.
If you switch cartridges with it ON (Yep I know - not recommended at all!) its possible to mix games. We could glitch munchkin with the race game and the cars could race around the maze.
I did this too! Games like "Invaders from Hyperspace" had the planets zoom off the screen for instance. What was interesting is it was repeatable to get the same effect.
@@christophercox6092 I didn't know that one! That's awesome!
We did this too!
I started my retro gaming journey with the Odyssey 2 last year. I felt like emulation of the O2 game didn't really capture the experience like I wanted, so I got a real one. I now have most of the 02 games (no Voice...yet) as well as a 2600+ and over a hundred carts for that as well. It was a great start to what has become a rewarding hobby/collection.
We had one and so did our cousin. He had a 2600 too but he played his Odyessy2 more, overall. We really did love ours, it seemed SO futuristic with it's keyboard.
Just mind blown 🤯, an awesome trip down memory lane. My cousin brought it out of the attic before he passed away. Just an awesome job Sir 👏
The Odyssey2 was my families first video game system. While my cousins had the Atari 2600, I was creating my own mazes in KC Munchkin and dodging boulders in Pick-Axe Pete. My Father and I played the heck out of Quest for the Rings and I will never forget how excited he was that the helicopter sounded like a real helicopter in Helicopter Rescue. I will always regret trading the entire collection for a single copy of Super Mario Bros 2 for the NES.
I still haven't gotten the chance to play The Quest for the Rings with friends yet since I picked it up! I agree that editing the mazes in both K.C. games is so much fun though, it adds so much replay value to the games.
KC Munchkin is probably the first example of a maze editor in videogaming...so ahead of its time
@@barrycase5799 in a console game maybe, but several computer games had them long before.
We had one of these back in the day, my parents got it for free for attending a demo for a time share. Another family had one they weren’t using and gave us all their games. My original one is long gone but I’ve had fun collecting it all back.
That's crazy, it's exactly how I got mine. My parents got it for attending a time share presentation.
@@davidl441funny! Are you in New England? Maybe same one.
Ahhh. Memories of my childhood. I was trying to repress my childhood memories.
This thing did have some great joysticks.
In the UK I had this machine badged as the Philips Videopac. Had the Quest for The Rings game which was beautifully packaged with the board game but I was too young to understand how to play it!
We had this when i was a kid and we knew this as the Phillips G7000 as you said, my favourite game was Terrahawks, Great video, thank you :)
KC Munchkin sequel was called KC’s Crazy Chase, not “wild chase”. We had, still have this system, had some great times with this system. Good memories
Amazing! this was my first real console when I was a Kid... me and my sister played millions of times with this console and I have fond memories about it.
My oldest brother bought us one when they first came out in ‘78. I remember riding my bike to the Magnavox dealer a few miles away to buy games.
I played the original Odyssey in 1972. It had cartridges. At the time, it was the most awesome video game ever.
I loved my odyssey 2! I inherited it from my older cousin in 1982 or 3. I even had the add-on talking -box and "You Type, It Talks". I had the one where the controllers were hardwired. I also had that sweet Quest for the Rings set and 5 other games. God i loved that thing!!❤
Pretty good look into the Oddysey2! In 1980-81 The local 'Woodward's' department store had a demo unit in the toy section with a bunch of carts locked on a chain and a few of us little kids who discovered it would play for HOURS after school on it. This was a different era of course.
The games were much more primitive then the Atari we all coveted (only a couple of us had one at the time, I didn't get mine until 1982) but they were different and sometimes quite fun, as noted. We all also noted the re-used assets and figured the 'same guy' had written most of the games. The port of Atlantis was surprisingly decent for this beast. It's a shame more games didn't take advantage of the keyboard. A 'Star Raiders' type of game with lots of ship controls would have been a system seller I always thought.
Also thank you for introducing me to the voice module, I had no idea it existed at all! It definately improves 'Attack of the Time Lord' and the villian now reminds me of the cyclops alien from the arcade version of Star Fury. Quest for the Rings was AMAZING and should have helped drive sales more then it did, it was TV advertised even. There was at least one other great board game/video game hybrid for this system but I forget the name of it now. A wonderful concept for family gaming that sadly never caught on. I imagine they were pretty expensive to make though, and Atari, Mattel and Coleco were all about the bottom line then. One of many reasons the market went splat in 83.
Great video, may it get many views!
You should make more videos, this was a good watch.
Thank you! And yes I absolutely plan to, there's a lot of cool stuff from my collection that I want to cover!
I had this!! Pick-Axe Pete was my hands down favorite.
The Odyssey 2 is my favorite 2nd gen console. It is also the first console I ever played. The thing that surprises me is that one programmer Ed Averett created 24 of the games and all 3 board games. He also created KC Munchkin. Several of the games he designed in less than 2 months.
Great to know his name ! As a little kid playing much of the library at the time (the carts were all chained together at a demo kiosk allowing people to check them all out) my friends and I all noted the similarity of game style and re-used assets and figured 'the same guy' wrote all the games. Looks like we were mostly right, especially as the better 3rd party games like the Atlantis port hadn't come out yet.
However the board games in particular were absolutely fantastic and could have been a whole new market had the bigger players like Atari and Mattel and Coleco gotten in on it, but I assume it was too expensive and would have resulted in less profit per game, which was all the big 3 at the time were interested in.
@@exidy-ytThe games were similar because the machine had a fixed set of sprites, characters, numbers, that's why they look all the same.
@@jimbotron70 I know, the video explained that.
I had no idea!
Really great non techie video. Much appreciated. Those games do look fun!
The AMC analogy is good!
American Motors Corporation? I know them well and love them. Great cylinder heads!
I think my Aunt had one of these, I definitely remember playing smithereens! Thanks for the nostalgia bump
I had the Odyssey 2, my first game box. I used to play a car racing game. I learned that I could race indefinitely without even watching the screen. It was a certain pattern. Mine had the black joysticks. It was from this video that I remember that… primarily due to the asterisk-like edges of the joystick. This created grooves, which helped me make sure I knew how I was moving the stick. We were poor at the time and my parents would never justify buying anything like this from a store but I think it was picked up from a second-hand store around 1982-1983.
Great video!!...had one as well as a kid..great underated console!!..My Dad would come home from work and play K.C. Munchkin til sometimes late at night...beautiful memories..
Still have mine in the box along with the voice module and most of those games. Pickaxe Pete and Attack of the Timelord were the two I spent the most time playing.
Had this, including the Voice add-on. UFO was our favorite game. We also had a really weird cart that could be used for kiosk information displays, and one for assembly programming.
Thank you for a great and informative video!
My pleasure! I've had the idea for this video in my head for a long time now, I'm really glad I finally got to complete it
I have a lot of memories of playing ours, one time my parents even let us hook it up to the color tv! Was such a huge step up from the 13" b&w.
Hearing the voice really takes me back - I had a wired revision with the voice module given to me as a kid back then. I recall it having great speech mannerisms and sounds it could only approximate. The "monster. attack. open. fire." from Sid the Spellbinder is burned into my memory.
I bought mine in 1980 and I still have it. It is connected to my modern tv via a VCR to demodulate the fm signal, and a retrotonk 2x pro.
I wish I hadn’t sold the bulk of my games back in the day.
I do have 5 games including Quest for the rings. :)
Great video! The odyssey 2 was definitely a great console of its time.
Thank you! It's such an awesome little machine that packs a good number of surprises in it.
I still play Killer Bees in an emulator once in a while. It’s a singularly weird game, but it gets fast and hard.
The weirdest thing about a lot of their arcade-style games is the concept of only having one life, instead of 3-5 lives like pinball or most arcade games of the era. It means that one unlucky saucer appearance ends your game of UFO.
i had the O2 & the Voice module and dozens & dozens of games .... still have them in the garage including all the game boxes & instructions. i had 2 of the ultra games , the Ring Quest & WW3 games.
The diagonal directions on the controllers were fantastic
I have one and I love it as well, def underrated
Subscribed for the AMC praise. Gotta love a good AMX, or the super dope Eagle.
My family first had a Colecovision. Not sure when but think my dad got it cheap and with a bunch of games like defender and Smurf adventure. Some time later he randomly came home with a NES. It was awesome at the time.
I've only seen one other review of the Odyssey 2, so this was cool. My parents bough us one of these in 1981 or '82, and at that that point, I'd never played a video game before. I liked playing Pit Fall with my brother, but when the family played together, it was always Golf; which I sucked at.
I had this. UFO still holds up, I love the regenerating shield and rotating gun. Wish they made a modern version.
Was at a swap meet over the weekend and found an Odyssey 2 bundle which after some hesitation I picked up as I have been really getting into this era of gaming, then this video gets recommended to me and I haven't even done any research on the system yet......... spooky.......
Did get about 9 games with it including Killer Bees, Cosmic Conflict (need to read up more on this one couldn't get it to move) and Attack of the Timelord all with boxes and most with manuals. Rebuilding the box for Timelord as it was badly crushed.
It is a model with the hardwired controllers and the left controller drifts a little to the right but it stops when I wiggle the controller during gameplay so it may just need more thorough cleaning inside.
Guess it was a good time for me to put out my video on the Odyssey² then!
That's a solid line-up of games, Killer Bees is probably my second favorite Odyssey² game after Attack of the Timelord and actually is one of the rarer titles on the console. I love the little particle effect that it does for both the swarm you control as well as the enemy green ones.
Its compact design makes it an underrated console!
The odyssey was very popular overseas and even got a more advanced system plus some cool add-ons that the US never got . The musical add on for example is way cool and seeing Attack of the TimeLord with extra graphics is kinda mind blowing.
I have one of these! I have the voice module with the software. Im waiting for the right game lot. I cant wait to play it.
For more than I could see, you have a really nice collection. I have like 30 consoles but I only have a studio apartment. So, I have to be picky of what I collect.
My family got a free one for attending a sales pitch for Thousand Trails campgrounds. We didn't sign up for anything, but the guy brought our system out just the same. I had great fun with that thing.
I later got a 2600, but I think I have more fond memories of the Odyssey 2
Our mom bought us the Odyssey2 for Christmas when we'd asked for the Atari. Initially we were disappointed, but that didn't last long. The games are incredibly more creative. KC Munchkin, for example, was leaps and bounds better than Atari's Pac Man adaptation in every way. Plus the ability to create your own maps --heaven!
First time I've seen quest for the rings mentioned for the Phillips game system. I remember these enhanced titles being available at my store.
We had one as our only console. Didn’t appreciate it nearly as much as we should have at the time.
Man, that thing was pretty cool, I missed so much being born in mid 80s. So ofcourse by the time i could really grasp playing video games it was 1990😢
We had one as well. My sister and I wanted a game system and my dad found this for sale in the paper from someone. It was certainly interesting to be the kids with the oddball game system.
I had one and LOVED IT!! Shame I wore out the controllers and they were hard wired into the system...
Me too
I bought me another one a year ago to relieve it again
I still love it !!!
@@rollingfog1 they had awesome games and filled the void between Intellivision and Colecovision
I am not a fan of the hardwired controllers at all, I much prefer the earlier silver ones.
The only reason why I own both versions is because my console with the silver controllers has a rather messy video signal, the later Odyssey² with the black controllers outputs a much cleaner image.
You have enough cartridges to make a circle. Start with two cartridges back to front. Set them on a table on one side. Pinch the handle ends together so the connector ends spread apart. Keep adding cartridges until you have a circle. I forget how many it takes to go around but they fit perfectly. Intentional part of the design or a neat accident of the cartridge shape?
In the early 1980's my mother entered some second chance drawing and won an Odyssey 2. For some reason she was sent two of them. So we sold one to get money to buy more games. Later I bought a second one with worn out controllers so I cut the cords off and attached DE9 ports to use 2600 compatible joysticks. The added length of the Odyssey's cords was a nice thing to have so my sister and I didn't have to sit so close to the TV.
The voice module wasn't a speech synthesizer. Everything it could say was built in, with a vocabulary of words and phrases, letter, numbers, and phonemes to build words not in its vocabulary. The vocabulary wasn't recorded with care to have it all sound the same. A funny example is in Smithereens! when it says "Come on turkey. Hit it!" Come, on, turkey, and Hit it! sound like they're each said by a different person. What would be a neat hack is making a new voice circuit that functions identically to the original but plays newly recorded 16 bit versions of all the sounds in the original. Even better would be to give it two sound sets. One recorded to better blend together, and one that duplicates the uneven inflections and tones of the original.
The Intellivoice speech module is simply a digital to analog converter feeding into an analog audio pin in the cartridge slot. All the sound was hand tuned digitized audio in the cartridges. They were so tight on space the sound used variable bitrate encoding, with every word painstakingly tweaked to be able to pack it all into the small space. IIRC the first voice game was B-17 Bomber, in just 4K. All other voice games were 8K to provide more room for the voice audio.
All those systems used synthesized voice, not sample based. It would have been impossible at the time to use samples.
That was a fun machine. My friend has it. I have a photo of the two of us playing it.
I got one for Christmas. The games were really well done. K,C, Munchkin was a world apart from Atari's pathetic version of Pac Man. The Quest For The Rings, the only "master strategy" game they released before they went out of business, used game tokens and a keyboard overlay and was way beyond anything you could do on the 2600 ( Intelevision had a great D&D type game, except for those awful controllers).
actually there was a Wall Street game that was also a master strategy game, with board and keyboard overlay.... sorta like teaching actual finance mixed with game theories. got it just as they went under... Montgomery Wards, Babbages, Dillards, Toys r Us were our final liquidation runaround my parents let us try in finding the last games.
Ah, memories of the mall as a kid. There was Sears of course. It had early pre-cartridge video game systems, then eventually their version of the 2600. But there was also the piano/organ store, which for some reason had an Odyssey 2 you could play. For fun, show this post to “kids today” and see how many things they’ve never experienced.
My dad got one for Christmas of 1978 because he had a friend that worked for Magnavox in the 70's and 80's. Dont know what possesed him to get it, but he did. I wasnt too familiar with video games yet seeing as how I'd only played 2 at that point. So it sat for about 3 years. My sister sometimes played it. But I never touched it until we got KC Munchkin for Xmas of 81. By that time, i was obsessed with anything Pac-Man or Pac-Man like. I finally started playing it. Better games started coming out around that time. For Christmas of 1982, my dad bought me a 2600 and Pac-Man. That pretty much spelled the end for my o2. Think it ended up getting lost in a move in the early 90's.
This was my first Console but it was a long time ago so most people don't know about a lot of stuff from the '70s 80's and 90's
Attack of the Time Lord was sold as Terrorhawks in the UK, a tie-in with the 80s Gerry Anderson puppet show of the same name.
Freedom Fighters was an excellent game, and is the main reason for owning a Oddessey 2.
I am still on a hunt for both the console it self, and the game, just for that reason 😄
Hopefully, my cousin still has his hidden away.
I know he had both that, and the Atari 2600, and finally a SEGA 16.
But I don't know if he traded him "up" on the console scale, or if he kept the older ones.
A spark of hope to find the OD2 was last summer when I found the cartridge for Bee Hive (?) at his childhood home, while visiting his father together with my dad.
(And just to be clear, his dad was going through a lot of stuff in the attic, and there was that cartridge...
So it wasnt something I just looked for by my self) 😄
I picked up one years ago from a Yard Sale. It was broken and no idea how to fix it. Sold it on e-bay. Somebody got a nice system with games in boxes. Ah 20+ years ago memories.
I had this but it was named Philips Videopac G7000...had several games and the music cartridge with a "piano" overlay to the keyboard..
The 233-in-1 Multi-Cart is a must-buy.
My cousins had one of these back in the day. it was pretty solid. Also, I had a complete original Magnavox Odyssey system many years ago, including a light gun and all the Rom cards and screen overlays.I sort of wish I still had it, even though it was not very impressive overall, and the controllers were strange and horrible.
Trust me: for a 7 to 11 kid back in the early 80s this was the stuff of dreams.
I remember when we first got this with the voice module! We spent many hours trying to get it to say dirty words lol.
I've never played with an Odyssey 2. Despite having a keyboard, it always gave me the impression of being more primitive than the Atari 2600. Granted, a lot of early 2600 games were equally as primitive, but as time went one, the games increased in complexity and graphics. I've thinking of stuff like Tunnel Runner, Space Shuttle, Midnight Magic, etc.
The one thing I really missed here is the C7010 chess module. I used to have a G7000. The chess game had a large module with its own processor and ram. Not sure if they had it in the US for the Odyssey or if it is compatible with the Odyssey.
i loved my Odyssey .. playing quest for the rings with my brother was so much fun.. then we sould smack down on deamon attack and ufo for hours.
At the time I was really into the Colecovision, and I still think it had the best graphics of its generation.
The Odyssey 2 was released here as the Philips Videopac. I saw a lot of publicity for it when I already had a Colecovision.
It seemed really primitive, and looking at this video confirms my opinion.
I didn't like the membrane keyboard, you never knew for sure whether you really pressed a key or not.
Also, by including it, it takes away from the feeling of being a console and gives you the impression this is more like a home computer.
The machine couldn't compete as a games console due to its limitations, and as a home computer it wasn't adequate either.
The games mostly seemed boring, and lacked variation. I didn't know at the time of these sprite limitations, but now I understand why that is.
Also, because of the use of letters and numbers, the distinction between a game and educational software becomes less clear either.
As a child/teenager you wanted to play games, and not get educational software disguised as a game.
Had this console was the first video game I ever played. Love the turtles game.
Bleep bloop bledp bleep bleep blooop
I still have my Odyssey from 1979 with all the cartridges.
I had one, and even had the optional Voice module that sat on top of the unit. Got it mainly to play KC Munchkin which was a far superior console adaptation of Pac-Man (anyone forced to play PM for the 2600 knows what I’m talking about).
That was something I didn't really touch on in my video here, Magnavox actually beat Atari to the market with KC Munchkin before the 2600 port of Pac-Man was even released, there was a big legal kerfuffle between Magnavox and Namco because of it and Magnavox had to eventually pull KC from the shelf (but not before a ton of copies were already sold).
And yeah, despite the differences in gameplay from the arcade version of Pac-Man, KC plays FAR better than that great turd of a 2600 port 😆
@@StevesAssortedStuff you’re absolutely right. I got my console and KC cartridge in 1981, and the Voice in 1982. I remember the controversy surrounding copyright infringement - which made me even happier I already had my copy.
My father bought two of these because there was a mail in rebate that had a value more than one units...so he bought two of them. We still have them, one is still in the plastic and the other has been opened.
I've got an Odyssey 2. I like Killer Bees. There's nothing out there quite like it.
Killer Bees is easily my second favorite O² title. The closest thing that it reminds me of is maybe Berserk, but yeah it's still a tremendously weird but very charming and unique game.
I got one of these in 1993 when you could get these sorts of things for $5 or $10 at a flea market. Had an Atari 2600 an NES and other things thanks to the prices back then. Not anymore! Makes me feel like I'm handling gold instead of a video game system, with how prices went so far up.
Nice collection, sad that one day these machines will all fail...Another reason to support emulation efforts because if not, these experiences will be lost to time.
My first gaming system.
A friend of mine had a Odyssey2 and had Quest for the Rings.
My cousin had the O2. He had KC Munchkin for it.
You forgot to mention the REAL "1st cartridge-based console", the first Odyssey game console. It came with 6 cartridges, I just bought one complete in the box at the flea market last Sunday for $80, have it sitting on the dresser next to me, haven't had a chance to hook it up and test it yet.
I had one... Actually, I may still have it in my attic with my Commodore 128-D.
I like the way the ship explodes on UFO. And the foil boxes are awesome. And I like the way the guy freaks out on Golf when you hit a tree. But most of the games are really bad. We had one of these when I was 5. I never liked sports games, but I remember thinking Golf and Baseball were the only games we had that didn't get old super fast. It was fun making levels for KC Munchkin but the actual game sucked. I learned to play Blackjack on an Odyssey 2 so I guess that's cool. 😂 There were 3rd party games like Atlantis that were decent, but most of the Odyssey 2 games were made by one guy. They clearly spent more money on the box art than on the software. It doesn't matter if the hardware was better than the 2600 if they didn't have anybody making decent games. They must've totally given up on it by the end of 1981 or early 1982. I never saw an Odyssey 2 game that was even close to the quality of River Raid or Pitfall, and it was totally outclassed by the Colecovision/Vectrex.
That membrane keyboard looks painful to use. 😮 It's fascinating to think about an era when there were no standardized connection ports for peripherals, and when people couldn't be expected to have a keyboard lying around.
The Odyssey 2 was $179 in 1978! It's amazing that they could give you a membrane keyboard for that price. The Atari 400/800 were $550 and $1,050. The Atari 400 had a membrane keyboard and the 800 had a good keyboard. Not many things had detachable keyboards unless they were huge like the original IBM, or had a clever design like the Osborne 1 or C64 SX.
No but you're right. It was a pretty terrible keyboard to try to type on. 😂
@RaquelFoster My brother loves typing on flat laptop keyboards, but those keyboards give me arthritis and carpal tunnel just looking at them. I recently started using a Dygma Defy (split, tented, orthagonal, and programmable mechanical keyboard), and the difference is night and day. My fingers and wrists feel no pressure or pain after typing!
9:55 it's so weird hearing this without the nerd making fun of it right after. It's like an unscratched itch 🤣
This was my first console 😁
I had Atari, my cousin had this. I had VHS, my cousin had Betamax. I wish we had upgraded versions of this and Atari instead of Nintendo taking over.
Love the cat.
Every Odyssey 2 I see without the Voice looks naked to me. You're really missing out if you don't have it.
Have one, love it :)
Videopac G7000 in Finland. Best "pacman" ever
The Odyssey 2 was my first purchased game system. I think I paid $135 or $185 that I saved from my paper route.
My parents bought us this instead of the 2600. There were some legitimately good games, and ironically KC Munchkin was a better Pac-Man game than what Atari had. My personal favorite was Pick Axe Pete.
I had the UK version branded under Phillips.
IIRC you could program it but in Hex. Something I had no idea about at the time.
9:54 angry video game nerd moment🤣
BEE SEVENTEEN BALLMER
I wanted to get one of these just to play Quest for the Rings.
Ugh. My parents and the shop talked me into having one of these when I wanted an Atari. Terrible. The space invaders game finally broke me, I sold it, got the 2600 and never looked back.
Given the whole convert-your-game-console-to-a-computer meme of the late 70s, early 80s, don't know why the 02 didn't do better vs the 2600, since the 02 had a keyboard included.
Add on keyboards for the Intv and vcs were the Big Thing, talked up at ces and videogame magazines of the day incessantly.
Of course, by 1984
, the atari and commodore 8 bit computers, and then the amiga, st post 85, took over the 80s.
By 1992, x86 pcs took over everything
My sister had one!
This was my first way to play video games at home. The G7000. Did not like it very much because even in 1980 when I got it, it was bad in terms of games and graphics, i replaced it with the zx81 and later the spectrum.....and learned programming. My future job.