Game of the week: Atlantis for Odyssey 2

The Odyssey 2 home video game console from Magnavox, known as the Philips Videopac outside of the U.S., never was the most popular of systems. Which is probably why there were never a lot of third-party games for the Odyssey 2.

However, the company Imagic, popular for its Atari 2600 and Intellivision games, did make a few cartridges for the Odyssey 2.

One of those games was Atlantis, which had been popular on the Atari 2600 and to a lesser extent on other computers and gaming consoles.

Atlantis is sort of like the arcade classic Missile Command, but then some. Personally, I've always like Atlantis more than Missile Command because it's an easier game to play and actually more fun, at least in my opinion.

Gameplay consists of defending the city of Atlantis from attacking alien ships and missiles and bombs that zoom across the screen above. The player has control of two guns at the bottom of the screen, one in each corner, and must protect various buildings in Atlantis from being destroyed. An extra bonus is the player gets a smart bomb to use every so often, and this destroys all the enemies on the screen at once.

The game starts off pretty easy, but speeds up until the action becomes quite frantic. This is one of the better games for the Odyssey 2, and collectors should definitely seek this one out.

The screen has bright, vibrant colors, as is common for this system, and the sounds are pretty good. Unfortunately, the graphics are only fair at best, not even being as strong as those of the Atari 2600. Still, what this game on the Odyssey 2 lacks in graphic capabilities, it makes up for in actual gameplay, which is tons of fun.