7 classic video games for the Odyssey 2

Pick Axe Pete

This was one of the most popular video games for the Odyssey 2 home systems. It was a climbing game sort of, in which you controlled the Pete on the screen who had to collect keys while avoiding boulders and other objects tumbling in his direction before going through doors and on to the next level. This was my personal favorite of all the Odyssey 2 games from Magnavox.

Killer Bees!

This was one of the more unique games not only for the Odyssey 2, but for all the home gaming consoles during the early 1980s. You play a swarm of bees attacking robots while avoiding other bees.

Q*bert

This arcade classic was still fun to play at home on the Odyssey 2, though I have to admit the graphics could have been better. Still, the Odyssey 2 had a lot going for it, but often the graphics paled in comparison to other home gaming consoles.

Turtles

One of the few arcade games to make it to a home version for the Odyssey 2 gaming console. The graphics were pretty good, the sound decent and the gameplay just like the arcade version of Turtles. For the early 1980s, this was an alright game.

Popeye

Based upon the popular arcade game, which was based upon the popular cartoon, Popeye brought arcade-style fun to the Odyssey 2, though admittedly it didn't have the same quality of graphics. Still, Popeye was a lot of fun to play on the Odyssey 2, also known as the Philips Videopac in Europe.

Atlantis

This game from Imagic was popular on the Atari 2600 and other gaming consoles and computers in the early 1980s, so it's only proper the Odyssey 2 had a version, especially since there never was a lot of third-party software for this gaming console. Atlantis here is great fun, and has great gameplay and colors.

UFO

Much like the arcade game Asteroids, you pilot a ship through space while avoiding the enemy. However, that's where the similarities end. UFO is an awesome game in its own right, and is worth playing for all its differences from asteroids. Oh yeah, and just for the fun of it!

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Video game of the week: Killer Bees! for Odyssey 2

The Odyssey 2 home video game console, also known as the Videopac outside the U.S., had a decent following in the early 1980s, but it was never the most popular system. A large part of that had to do with the system's lack of strong graphics and sound, but that meant the creators for the Odyssey 2 games had to work all that much harder to make stronger gameplay.

To that end, such unique games as Killer Bees! came about.

The player controls a swarm of bees in an arena. The bees attack robots, which slows down and eventually can destroy the robots, leaving behind a tombstone where the robots died. The most dangerous enemy? Another swarm of bees, and they fly around quickly trying to attack the player's bees. One by one, the player's bees are picked away, and once there are no more bees for the player, the game ends.

For today's gamers, this might sound a little silly and overly simplistic, but for the early 1980s it was actually a pretty decent game. Unfortunately, the Odyssey 2 was never shown a lot of love by consumers and collectors, and such games as Killer Bees! never caught on big time.

While the graphics for the Odyssey 2 were never great, here they are quite sharp, bright with no blurring. The sound is simplistic, as well, but it's appropriate for the system and the time period. The controls are excellent.

The game speeds up slowly, adding to the tension, and while Killer Bees! might not be a game you would want to play for hours and hours, it is a nice little game that can give you a short break.

Killer Bees! was truly a different game for its time period, and deserves to get a little notice for its uniqueness. Collectors of retro video game systems could do far worse than to pick up a copy of Killer Bees!

Game of the week: Q*bert for Odyssey 2

The glory days of the arcades, mainly the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, was full of colorful characters. You had the likes of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, just to name a couple. Then in 1982 the company known as Gottlieb came out with a new arcade game called Q*bert which featured a little, round orange character with big eyes, a funny-looking nose, and little legs but no arms.

Q*bert became quite the hit game in the arcades, so much so the Q*bert character became recognizable to much of the world. Eventually there were sequel games to Q*bert, and even an animated cartoon show for a while.

If you're not familiar with Q*bert, it's a fun little game. The player controls the Q*bert character as it jumps around on a pyramid, and each time Q*bert lands on top of a cube that is part of the pyramid that cube changes color. The goal is to get all the pyramid's cubes to be a particular color. Sounds like a simple game? Don't worry, because it gets more complicated. While jumping around on this pyramid, Q*bert has to dodge balls falling from above, monsters who chase after him and a snake that spring around all over the board. Two floating discs, one on either side of the pyramid, allow Q*bert an opportunity to temporarily escape its foes by taking Q*bert back to the top of the pyramid and away from immediate danger.

It was a great, fun game, though for some gamers it took a little getting used to the controls because the joystick was made to have Q*bert jump at angles and not move directly left or right nor up and down.

Because of Q*bert's popularity, the video game was ported to many of the home gaming consoles of the early 1980s, including the Magnavox Odyssey 2, which also went by the name of the Philips Videopac outside of the U.S.

The Odyssey 2 never sported that many third-party games, meaning games made by companies other than the creators of the Odyssey 2, but there were a handful. The company Parker Brothers released some games for the Odyssey 2, and Q*bert was one of them.

The version of Q*bert for the Odyssey 2 was kind of a mixed back for gamers. It had all the elements of the arcade game, including an introduction scene that explains how to play and some decent sounds, but the graphics just weren't all that good, at least not compared to the arcade game and most of the other console versions. Immediately noticeable is the fact the cubes on the pyramid don't like like cubes, but more like flattened squares. Then there's the colorful discs on the sides of the pyramid; here, they're not very colorful. The graphics for the Q*bert characters itself are passable, though nothing special, as are those for Q*bert's enemies.

Fortunately, the quality of play for the Odyssey 2 version of Q*bert was quite strong, much like that of the arcade version. And it helped that the Odyssey 2's joysticks were of the eight-direction variety, making it much easier than more stiff joysticks (such as those with the Atari 2600) in controlling Q*bert as it bounced around the screen.

Overall, I'd have to say Q*bert for the Odyssey 2 was fun to play, but I wish it had had better graphics, though admittedly graphics were not a strength of this home gaming system.

Game of the week: Turtles for Odyssey 2

As soon as the Namco and Midway companies released Pac-Man to the arcades in 1980, maze games suddenly became a huge craze. To cash in on that craze, other companies began to put out their own maze games.

One such game was Turtles, by Konami and Stern and Sega. Turtles was never a very popular arcade game. In fact, I only ever remember seeing one of them, and that was at a bowling alley in the mid-1980s.

However, Turtles was one of the few arcade games to be ported to the Odyssey 2 home gaming console made my Magnavox.

Turtles had simple graphics and simple rules. The player moves a mother turtle around a screen while trying to collect baby turtles and then take the babies to a house that appears randomly on the screen. The main problem with this is there are beetles trying to kill the mother turtle. In self defense, the mother turtle can drop bombs which will temporarily stun the beetles.

Sounds simple, and it was. But it was still a decent game. My biggest complaint was that the maze was too simple. Even the maze in the original Pac-Man was much more complex.

The Odyssey 2 version of Turtles, however, really stretched the capabilities of this home gaming system, so much so that it was almost like playing Turtles in the arcade. Graphics were never a strength of the Odyssey 2, though the colors were always bright, but for Turtles they really stood out, looking a fair amount like the arcade version's graphics.

The Odyssey 2 also had available an expansion module called The Voice, which allowed for some speech and extra special effects sounds. The Voice added quite a bit to the Turtles game, mainly through music that sounded quite like the arcade music for Turtles.

Now, all that being said, keep in mind I'm talking about very early 1980s home video game technology. To be perfectly honest, by today's standards all of this was garbage. But for the early 1980s, the graphics and sounds and gameplay for the Odyssey 2 version of Turtles was pretty good. Not great, put pretty good. There were worse games, but there were also better. Still, Turtles on the Odyssey 2 always held a special place for me because the arcade game is so rare (at least in the U.S.) and because the Odyssey 2 had so few arcade games ported to it.

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.

Game of the Week: UFO for Odyssey 2

If you sit down to play the video game UFO on a classic Magnavox Odyssey 2 home system, it's impossible not to make comparisons to the arcade hit from Atari, Asteroids.

Much like Asteroids, the player controls a ship that floats around in space while shooting at enemy spacecrafts. The first noticeable difference between UFO and Asteroids is that in UFO your ship has a force shield that not only can protect your ship from attacks, but can also be used to take out enemy ships by running into them.

Admittedly, the graphics aren't that great, but they're also not the worst there are, especially considering the time period when the Odyssey 2 was originally available, the early 1980s. Most of the enemies attacking you are simply circles or X's, and even the toughest bad guy, a flying saucer that comes by from time to time, isn't much more than a straight line.

Still, UFO is a challenging but fun game to play. Much like Asteroids, the longer you play, the tougher the game gets. One cool thing, or at least I though so, was that with a little practice you can fly your ship in one direction while shooting in another, allowing you to blow away the enemy while escaping.

Also, as with all Odyssey 2 games, the colors here are exceptional and the sound fair. Overall, I'd say the gameplay is a touch above decent, though not quite unique or extraordinary.

Retro gaming buffs will want this game for their collection.

If you are in or from Europe, you might remember the Odyssey 2 under a different name, the Philips Videopac.

Game of the Week: Popeye for Odyssey 2

The Atari 2600 was the hot home video game system of the early 1980s, but there were plenty of other systems, including the Odyssey 2 from the Magnavox company.

The Odyssey 2 was never a major hit in the United States, but it had solid success in Europe where it was known as the Philips Videopac G7000. This European success lead a handful of companies to make and/or port games for the Odyssey 2, including Popeye from Parker Brothers.

Popeye had been a pretty popular arcade game in the early 1980s, so popular that a port was made of it to just about every computer and home video gaming system of the time. There was even a small tabletop version of Popeye. The game was based upon the popular cartoon series of Popeye the Sailor.

The Odyssey 2 never had the greatest of graphics, often not even as good as those of the Atari 2600, which was a system commonly lambasted for not-so-great graphics. But the Odyssey 2 did have bright, vibrant colors and decent controls.

Popeye for the Odyssey 2 was guilty of simple, blocky graphics, as well. But it did have the bright colors as well as decent sound and quality gameplay.

Was Popeye ever a favorite of Odyssey 2 fans? It's hard to say since the Odyssey 2 was never the most popular of systems. But being that Popeye is one of the few games for the Odyssey 2 not actually made byMagnavox, someone at Parker Brothers must have seen the marketability potential.

Game of the Week: Pick Axe Pete for Odyssey 2

The Magnavox Odyssey 2 was never the most popular of home video game systems back when it was being sold in stores during the late 1970s and 1980s. Okay, scratch that. Actually, the system was extremely popular, just not in the United States. In Europe the same gaming system was known as the Philips Videopac G700 and was quite popular. Under other names, the Odyssey 2 was also a bit hit in countries such as Japan and Brazil.

Released to consumers in 1978, the Odyssey 2 was meant to be competition for the Atari 2600. The Odyssey 2 never quite reached those heights, but it did fairly well. And why shouldn't it? While its colors were limited, those colors were often stronger and brighter than those of the 2600 and other systems of the times, such as the Intellivsion. Also, in the opinion of many young gamers back in the day, the joysticks for the Odyssey 2 were preferable than those of the Atari 2600 because the Odyssey 2 joysticks didn't stick as much and had more of an "arcade" feel to them.

The Odyssey 2 had its faults, however. The system never had very many games, not even a hundred total. Also, the graphics for the Odyssey 2 weren't predictable. Some games had strong graphics, compatible with those of the Intellivision, while others games were little more than colored squares and lines on a screen, often as bad or worse than the ugliest games for the Atari 2600.

Still, there were a handful of excellent games for the Odyssey 2. One of those games, perhaps the most popular of the lot, was Pick Axe Pete.

Pick Axe Pete was sort of a climbing game, somewhat similar to the more popular arcade game Donkey Kong, where you climb up and down ladders between levels on the screen while trying to collect keys to unlock and go through doors for points. You had to avoid boulders while doing this, and you had some trusty help from a constantly-swinging pick axe which could destroy the boulders. It sounds easy, but it wasn't. Going through one of the doors advanced your character to the next screen, which was faster and more difficult. Every once in a while rolling boulders will leave behind items that can be worth points or even another pick axe, which is often needed as the pick axes tend to wear out after a while. But don't fret if your pick axe is gone! You can still jump or duck your way around those boulders.

One interesting aspect about Pick Axe Pete was that you don't have to leave the very first screen if you don't want to. Just skip collecting those keys and going through doorways and you can stay on the first level forever while collecting tons of points. The big drawback however is that the game will still get faster and faster and faster.