Odyssey²

The console that bet on a keyboard. Magnavox’s Odyssey² (Philips’ Videopac in Europe) answered the Atari 2600 with a built-in keyboard, board-game hybrids, a talking voice module and one programmer’s entire library – then outlived its American cancellation in Europe and Brazil. This page is the complete story, from Ralph Baer’s Brown Box lineage to the K.C. Munchkin lawsuit that defined game copyright.

Odyssey² Forever: The Complete Story of the Keyboard Console

The Master Strategy board games, Ed Averett’s one-man library, The Voice, and the lawsuit over a munchkin: the complete Odyssey² story.

Read the story

Start here

The Legacy of Ralph Baer – the founding father of home video games, whose Brown Box began the lineage this console inherited.

Its great American rival, the thinking person’s other console: the Intellivision.

▶Odyssey² Articles

Features

Odyssey 2 Buying Guide 2026: Consoles, Voice Modules and Cartridges That Matter

October 31, 2026 · 9 min read

Hedged prices, the PAL traps, the complete-box problem and the twenty cartridges to buy first. A practical 2026 guide to starting — or completing — an Odyssey 2 and Videopac collection without overpaying for the wrong plastic.

Features

Odyssey 2 Hidden Gems: Ten Cartridges the Second Shelf Keeps Secret

October 31, 2026 · 9 min read

Third-party shooters, European-only arcade conversions, a stock-market board game and the talking tutor cartridges — ten Odyssey 2 games that sit behind the famous names and deserve a shelf of their own.

Features

Odyssey 2 in Europe: The Videopac Story — G7000, G7400 and the Games America Never Got

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

In America it was the third console. In Europe, as the Philips Videopac G7000, it was a market leader with its own numbering, its own exclusives and, in 1983, a successor machine. The European half of the Odyssey 2 story is bigger than you think.

Features

The Keyboard Console: Computer Intro!, the C7010 Chess Module and the Odyssey 2’s Computer Ambitions

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

It was the only games console of its generation with a full keyboard built in — and Magnavox and Philips kept trying to make it a computer. From Computer Intro! in 1979 to a chess module carrying its own processor, this is the story of that ambition.

Features

Master Strategy Series: When Odyssey 2 Games Came With a Board

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Three big boxes, three game boards, one idea decades ahead of its time: let the tabletop hold the map and the television hold the maths. Inside the Master Strategy Series — Quest for the Rings!, Conquest of the World and The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt.

Features

The Voice of Odyssey 2: The Module That Gave a Console a Voice

October 31, 2026 · 7 min read

It sat on top of the console like a second machine, spoke through its own speaker, and turned maze games into game shows and spelling drills into conversations. The Voice is the Odyssey 2’s boldest accessory — this is how it worked and what to play on it.

Reviews

Sid the Spellbinder! Odyssey 2 Review: The Shooter That Teaches Spelling Out Loud

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Shoot the letters in order, spell the word, hear it spoken. Sid the Spellbinder! turns The Voice module into a teacher and a spelling drill into an arcade game — and it might be the most likeable educational cartridge of its era.

Reviews

Pachinko! Odyssey 2 Review: Springs, Pegs and the Honest Physics of Luck

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Launch the ball, nudge nothing, and watch gravity negotiate with a field of pegs. Pachinko! is the Odyssey 2’s cheerful surrender to chance — part pinball, part lottery, and a small lesson in how much fun a bounce can carry.

Reviews

Power Lords Odyssey 2 Review: The Toy Line’s Last Stand in Volcanic Rock

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Adam Power, a volcano fortress, a laser-eyed villain and one of the rarest North American cartridges on the system. Power Lords is the Odyssey 2’s licensed finale — a strange, tough action game that collectors chase and players should too.

Reviews

K.C.’s Krazy Chase! Odyssey 2 Review: Eating the Dratapillar, One Segment at a Time

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

The sequel the lawyers made necessary: K.C. returns to hunt a segmented Dratapillar through the maze, trees and all, while The Voice shouts encouragement and alarm. K.C.’s Krazy Chase! is the rare forced sequel that finds a game of its own.

Reviews

Monkeyshines! Odyssey 2 Review: Tag, You’re It — Monkey Business on Three Floors

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Chase the monkeys, tag them before the timer turns, and watch the hunted become the hunters. Monkeyshines! is a bright, frantic game of tag across a three-storey playfield — one of the Odyssey 2’s most purely joyful cartridges.

Reviews

Showdown in 2100 A.D. Odyssey 2 Review: High Noon, With Robots

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Two gunfighters, a stand of trees for cover, and bullets that can be steered after they leave the barrel. Showdown in 2100 A.D. turns the western duel into one of the Odyssey 2’s finest two-player cartridges.

Reviews

Cosmic Conflict! Odyssey 2 Review: A Cockpit View From 1978

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

A starfield, a crosshair, and enemy ships sliding across your gunsights — Cosmic Conflict! put Odyssey 2 players inside the cockpit in 1978, in one of the earliest first-person space games on a home console.

Reviews

Alien Invaders—Plus! Odyssey 2 Review: The Launch Shooter With a Twist in the Ranks

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

The Odyssey 2’s 1978 answer to Space Invaders adds a armoured mothership, a wandering monster and a cannon you must protect as much as pilot. Alien Invaders—Plus! is the most honest kind of launch game: familiar, competent, and just different enough.

Reviews

War of Nerves! Odyssey 2 Review: Robot Armies and the Art of the Ambush

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Two robot generals, armies that march where you point them, and a battlefield that rewards the ambush over the charge. War of Nerves! is a 1979 two-player strategy duel hiding inside an early Odyssey 2 cartridge.

Reviews

Conquest of the World Odyssey 2 Review: Risk, Refereed by a Television

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

The second Master Strategy game turns the board into a world map and the console into referee, banker and battlefield. Conquest of the World is the Odyssey 2’s grand-strategy experiment — slower, richer, and built for a table full of rivals.

Reviews

Quest for the Rings! Odyssey 2 Review: The Board Game That Plugged Into a Television

October 31, 2026 · 7 min read

A real game board, real tokens, a keyboard overlay — and dungeons generated on screen from what the board reveals. Quest for the Rings! invented the board game / video game hybrid in 1981, and nothing since has quite repeated it.

Reviews

Attack of the Timelord! Odyssey 2 Review: The Voice That Taunts You

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Spillane the Timelord mocks you from beyond the screen while his weapons rain down in patterns no other Odyssey 2 shooter attempts. Attack of the Timelord! is the system’s most theatrical shooter — and its best voice performance.

Reviews

Killer Bees! Odyssey 2 Review: Command the Swarm, Zap the Beekeepers

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

You do not shoot the invaders. You are the swarm — a cloud of bees defending the hive against beekeepers and rival swarms, with a screen-clearing zap and The Voice providing the buzz. Killer Bees! is the strangest great game on the Odyssey 2.

Reviews

Turtles Odyssey 2 Review: The Maze Rescuer With a Voice of Its Own

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

No ninjas, no pizza — this 1983 Turtles is a mother turtle rescuing her babies through a beetle-patrolled maze, with The Voice humming the soundtrack. One of the Odyssey 2’s last and loveliest arcade conversions.

Reviews

Freedom Fighters! Odyssey 2 Review: Defender’s Spirit, Momentum and All

October 31, 2026 · 6 min read

Rescue prisoners, mind your momentum, and try not to plough into the planet you are protecting. Freedom Fighters! is the Odyssey 2’s answer to Defender — looser, stranger, and more charming than its reputation suggests.

Reviews

UFO! Odyssey 2 Review: The Shield Shooter Everyone Owned for a Reason

October 31, 2026 · 7 min read

Your ship sits at the centre of the screen behind a rotating shield while UFOs swarm from every direction. UFO! was the Odyssey 2 game every owner seemed to have — and the one that first let you type your name beside a high score.

Reviews

Pick Axe Pete! Odyssey 2 Review: Gold Fever in the Misty Mountain Mine

October 31, 2026 · 7 min read

Pete swings, boulders bounce, doors open on floors that rearrange themselves — Pick Axe Pete! is the Odyssey 2’s finest platformer and the game a ten-year-old won a pound of gold playing at the 1982 World’s Fair.

Reviews

K.C. Munchkin! Odyssey 2 Review: The Maze Chase That Outran Pac-Man’s Lawyers

October 31, 2026 · 7 min read

It beat the official Pac-Man home port to market by a year, outsold everything else on the Odyssey 2, and then a court order pulled it from shelves. K.C. Munchkin! is still the maze game this system is judged by — because it is genuinely, defiantly better than a clone has any right to be.