Odyssey2

MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY 2
(1978-1983)

The Ultimate Computer video game system?

I love the box design, eh!

This game system is the official sequel to the original Odyssey (the first real video game system ever), here's Magnavox's Odyssey 2! This machine was the Atari 2600's only real competition in the late 70's and it's also one of the few game machines to survive into the eighties. The Odyssey2 had a unique feature to it, a build in keyboard to play some more educational games and you can even edit some of your different games too thanks to all the options the system as. The Odyssey2 was a great idea for it's time but Atari wasn't going to sit back and let Magnavox take over.

The Odyssey 2 may be best remembered most for it's Pac Man-like game; KC Munchkin and the Atari lawsuit that followed. Atari took Magnavox to court in 1981 to order Magnavox to discontinue production of KC Munchkin saying it was too similar to there licensed Pac Man game for the Atari 2600 (which kind of sucked anyways) but Atari lost the case and Magnavox quickly increased shipments of the KC Munchkin instead, however, Atari continued to countersue and then eventually won and Magnavox was then forced to stop selling the game thus ruining their greatest hit. A shame because KC Munchkin is fairly good game and it was even superior to Atari's failed Pac Man!

Magnavox didn't give up without a good fight though against Atari's brutal assault, they just released a sequel to KC Munchkin in 1982 called KC Krazy Chase. KC Krazy Chase not only improved the game play over the first (improved radically enough for Atari to leave them alone) but if you had the Odyssey 2 Voice adapter hooked up you can actually hear KC Munchkin talk during the game....... how cool is that? Many Magnavox games were even getting better by 1981 thanks to the cartridges now getting improved memory, this means you could actually keep score of your games (this is not the same as battery back up so don't get too excited) which fixed many complaints of the earlier Odyssey2 games. The Odyssey2 Voice Adapter was not only compatible with certain games but you can also use it with the system's keyboard to test the voices out thanks to another program, there was nothing else quite like it for its time and it really made the Odyssey2 look quite advance for it's day.

Despite some nice features about the Odyssey2, the system is just too old now of days to be taking seriously and some of the games (many of them are cloned Atari 2600 games) can really suck. Plus there was virtually no third party support either meaning you will not find any games on the Odyssey2 you will know about. "Oh No!" I barely play it anymore but it's still better than their CDi game machine released in the 90's.

Overall System Rating: 59/100
Find this game on eBay here!

Rare Scale: 4/10 it's getting now rarer now because of its old age.

Rare Odyssey2 games:
Atlantis
Conquest of the World (big box set)
Demon Attack
Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt (big box set)
Power Lords
Quest for the Rings (big box set)