Kill the Attacking Aliens!

I'm running behind on site updates, but I had to take time out to make this post... Sören Gust has released a demo version of his BRAND NEW Odyssey²/G7000 game, Kill the Attacking Aliens (KTAA for short). KTAA is an unusual Space Invaders-type game where you must shoot down invading alien saucers while protecting your houses and trees from their devastating bombs. Although this is "just a demo," the game already shows a lot of promise, and features some of the most complicated action and animation ever seen in an Odyssey² game! Download the demo (it works with O2EM v.87) at Sören's Kill the Attacking Aliens site.

O2EM Launcher v0.2a... with Screenshots!

Heitor Barcellos has released a new version of O2EM Launcher, the promising new O2EM frontend. It now supports screenshots, box covers and manuals! Heitor has also created a Screenshot Pack to go along with it. (Note: if this file is not currently mirrored on any of FilePlanet's public servers, please be patient. It should be mirrored within 24 hours.) And be sure to watch the O2EM Launcher site for any new developments.

I'm on vacation for the next week, so there won't be any site updates for the next few days. I do, however, have some decent updates in mind once I return. I won't have access to e-mail while I'm gone, so if you mail me, please be patient. I'll answer as soon as I can!

More New O2EM Developments

Andre de la Rocha has released version 0.87 of O2EM. This version fixes a bug that was keeping Cosmic Conflict! from running properly. It also features better support for O2EM Launcher, a new Windows frontend. Download O2EM v0.87 in the Media section.

O2EM Launcher, by Heitor Barcellos, is currently the only Windows frontend compatible with O2EM version 0.87, and it's a slick piece of software to boot. You can download O2EM Launcher here, and I also recommend keeping an eye on the O2EM Launcher web site for new versions.

New Odyssey² Emulator Version Available!

Exciting news! Over the past week, programmer Andre de la Rocha has released THREE new versions of O2EM, the Odyssey² emulator created by Dan Boris. (It seemed like every time I was about to post this update, a new revision would come out and I'd have to rewrite it!) The current version is v0.86, and it has introduced a LOT of new and improved functionality. Here's a list directrly from Andre himself:

Head on over to the Media page to find downloads for O2EM as well as some support files. (Note: you also need the Odyssey² BIOS ROM to use this emulator. If you don't already have it, look for it in ClassicGaming's Vault.)

To create this O2EM update, Andre had to restore a lot of source code that had been inadvertantly lost by Dan Boris after version 7.0. The loss of this code helps explain why O2EM development was stagnant for so long. I think I speak for all O2 fans when I say "Thanks!" to Andre for restarting development on this great O2 emulator! After all, it's the only one we have.

Spider-Man Planned for Videopac?!

In light of the recent blockbuster movie, this is interesting news indeed. A Videopac collector from the Netherlands, René van den Enden, has uncovered possible evidence that Parker Bros. was planning to release a Spider-Man game for the G7000. An article in the first 1984 issue of Commander-ROM, a German magazine dedicated to Philips games and computers, contains a list of Videopac games published by companies other than Philips. Under "Parker" are Parker Brothers' four released titles, as well as "Spiderman." Now, Parker Bros. did publish Spider-Man for the Atari 2600 system. Could they have been planning to release a Videopac version as well, or was this just a mistake by the magazine writers? Personally, I'm leaning toward the "mistake" theory, at least until references to a Videopac Spider-Man game turn up somewhere else. Still, it's an intriguing possibility! Here's a scan of the article (warning: it's a big file).

Some additional information about Commander-ROM has been added to the Collectibles section.

Bits 'N' Pieces

No big updates recently, just some minor stuff. Added a few reader-submitted ratings to the Game Reviews, made a few small corrections to the Brazilian Rarity List, added a link to the Links section. The most interesting addition is a new Odyssey² advertisement featuring Football! that came from a Playboy magazine (no naked ladies though).

Off-Site Articles Added

I have added a section to the Articles page for links to Odyssey² articles on other Web sites. Head on over there for links to a Robert Harris interview, a lot of Command Center information, the Videopac Label Variations List, and the plans for building your own Game Center.

Make Your Own Game Center!

One of the most unexpected things to come out of this year's PhillyClassic show were the reproduction classic video game store kiosks built by Curt Vendel of the Atari Historical Society. Curt has created detailed plans about how to build replica displays for the ColecoVision, Astrocade, and Odyssey². You can see how realistic they look by checking out John Dondzila's PhillyClassic photos (too bad I don't still live back East -- I'd have loved to go to that show!). Feel free to grab a Dremmel and get building, but a word of warning: Curt hasn't published the full plans for the Odyssey² kiosk yet. Hopefully he'll get the last few pages of them up soon.

GamesDB Back Up, Brazil Section Redesigned

ClassicGaming's server problems seem to have been taken care of, so the Games Database and Game Reviews should be working again. One section that never stopped working is the Brazilian Rarity List, and it will continue to work, only now it will be doing it with a new look that brings it in line with my new site design. I also filled in a few gaps with information gleaned from the #1 Brazilian Odyssey site, Odyssey 2000.

A Pigskin Classic

If you like stick figures running around on a green grid, you'll love the latest game review! Yes, it's Football!, a short review sent to me by Jim Calhoun millions of years ago when the Earth was just a molten mass (or so it seems). But the wait is over -- go captain a team of realistic electronic superstars!

Also added were a whole bunch of reader ratings sent in over the past few days, plus a couple that had been sitting unused at the back of my mailbox since who knows when. Enjoy!

Odyssey2 Font Available

My modest friend Justin the Almighty has graciously reminded me about two things he e-mailed me a while back, but that had become lost in the dark cavern of my Inbox. The first is the nifty Odyssey2 Font he created that looks just like the built-in Odyssey² character set. This font is really cool, and works best when displayed at point sizes that are powers of 2 (4, 8, 32, 64...). Great stuff! Also added is Justin's All Your Base Are Belong To Us Odyssey² homage, which dates from the time when everyone was obsessed with the bad translations in Zero Wing. Ahh, memories...

Both of these additions have a permanent home on the Media page, which now has a new Table of Contents for easy navigation.

FAQ Attack

I've updated the Odyssey² FAQ section, bringing it in line with the new site design and making it more readable in the process. This version of the FAQ is more recent than the one I had on the site before, but it's still a little dated. The Games Database is set up to become a better source for information on the individual games.

I also added a small Q&A section, which is a reworked version of something I used to have on the contact page (which has also been redone). Nothing exciting here for the Odyssey² veteran, but if you're having trouble getting your console hooked up to your TV, for example, you may find it useful.

Retratos Novos! (New Pictures!)

I'm starting to go through my old submissions, and decided to add some of the more interesting items I've received recently, sent by Victor E.J.S. Vicente of Brazil. New to the Collectibles section are photos of a Brazilian strategy games brochure (both the front and back of it), and a really cool Brazilian games poster that features 39 game boxes. Warning: these photos are really big, so be prepared to wait if you're on a slow connection...

Game Reviews... OK, Now!

Well, that was embarrassing... here I made this big announcement about the new Game Reviews section, and there was a coding error that kept all the reviews from loading! I didn't notice it yesterday because of a caching problem. Everything should be fixed now, and I think I've taken care of that Voice calculation error as well (*crosses fingers*).

Game Reviews Gets Facelift

After much struggling and gnashing of teeth and fixing of Netscape errors, the Game Reviews section has been overhauled for the umpteenth – and hopefully final – time! The section now fits into the new site design, but more importantly, the reviews are almost fully integrated with the Games Database! This means that all the reviews are now linked from the GamesDB section, and vice versa. It also means that any time a new box scan, cart photo or screenshot is added to the database, it will show up on the appropriate review page automatically. So most of all, it means less work for me!

The game ratings are now used much more effectively. As before, you can still rate a game's graphics, sound, and playability by filling out an online form. Only now, the form is far easier to find and works much more reliably. You can also send ratings anonymously now, in case you're hiding from the Mafia or something and don't want me to know your e-mail address. Just click the "Rate It!" button on a game review page, then follow the instructions.

The ratings are part of a database now, so overall averages can be calculated "on the fly" as new ratings are submitted. Right now, there's an error that's making the the Voice ratings calculations come out a little off, but I'm looking into it. In the meantime, get on over to the Game Reviews section and send me some more ratings!

New Pictures in the Database

Whoa, sorry for the long break between updates! I've been pressed for time lately so it's been hard to get new stuff added, which is a shame because I have new submissions pouring in. All of it WILL get added eventually, when I have enough time.

In the meantime, I've updated the Database section with new photos sent to me by Marcello Iannuzzi and Lige Hensley. Here's what's new:

• Invasores do Cosmos! (Brazil) box
• Abelhas Assassinas! (Brazil) new box
• Tartarugas! (Brazil) new box
• Super Cobra (Brazil) new box
• Senhor das Trevas! (Brazil) box
• OVNI! (Brazil) new box
• Fórmula 1!/Interlagos!Crypto-Logic! (Brazil) new box
• Chinese Logic (Europe) box
• K.C. Munchkin! prototype cart

Thanks for the submissions guys!

New Design! Rich and Vivid Colors!

Why a new design? Well, you see, when a web site and its owner have been together for a long time, sometimes things become... complacent. Some webmasters might try to spice things up by putting animated gifs in new positions or by (*gasp*) fooling around with other sites, but that's dangerous. Who knows what viruses you might pick up out there? Your hard drive could become permanently damaged!

Uh, that metaphor got out of control – sorry. My point is that The Odyssey² Homepage! has been online for 5 years now (hard to believe), and the old design was kind of stale. But it wasn't bad – just a little slipshod – so I didn't actually change that much other than the page headings. I wanted to make the pages seem more standardized. This new look may not be perfect (is there such a thing as a "perfect" web page?), but it's better. I have a overall vision for how I want this site to look, and this is the first step toward reaching it.

What's different? Looks mainly, but now the site is optimized for 800x600 resolutions, since it seems nobody uses 640x480 anymore. That means it should look better on 17" and larger monitors. Not all the sections have been converted over, but I'm working on it.

What else is different? Well, first you'll note there's a new section called Articles. Don't get too excited just yet, because for now it only contains old (but good!) stuff like the HYPE! essay. Hopefully some new Articles will be forthcoming (I have some ideas...)

I "standardized" the look of the Images!/Sounds! page, which I'm calling my Media section now because "Media" takes up less room in navigation bars. :)

The ever-popular Collectibles section also received some TLC. Aside from converting it over to the new design, I broke up the pages into separate tables so they should load faster, and ran most of the thumbnail images through a compression program to shave off some bytes. I punched up the Hardware page considerably. Now it goes into more explicit detail about the differences between American Odyssey² consoles (there's even a handy chart), and I added some descriptive pics. Moonbeam, who is a veritable Videopac expert, straightened out a lot of information about the European Videopac-compatible consoles, so now that part of the page is more accurate. He also sent along a bunch of photos I haven't added yet, but soon will. However, I did finally add a decent pic of a Jopac console. I also put up a European console compatibility chart.

I think that pretty much covers it. Hope you like the new design!

By the way, if you haven't checked out Ozyr's Odyssey² Instructions Archive, you should. I had an out-of-date link to it here before, until Ozyr sent me the correct one.

Smithereens Comes to the 2600 (Kind Of)

The VCS Simulator (VCSS) is a program that simulates the functions of an Atari 2600 console on your PC. It's not an emulator, so it won't run actual game ROMs, but it does run original, Atari 2600-like games. Khryssun, the creator of VCSS, is currently developing an "improved" port of Smithereens! (AKA Stone Sling) for the Simulator. Currently, the first screenshot is available for viewing. (Thanks Atari Age for the news.)

The Missing Links

I've finally gotten around to updating the sorely out-of-date Links section. It needed it badly -- many of the links on it had moved or were gone entirely, and there were a ton of new sites I needed to add. In particular, I recommend you visit these sites:

• BuckyB's Retropage - A great site for information on Videopac label variations and scans!
• Magnavox Odyssey 2 Super Site - A young site that has a nice bit of O2 info, including high scores, collecting tips, and game reviews.
• Philips Videopac G7000 Page - A relatively new site, but it's nicely laid out and has lots of great pictures, and even some QuickTime clips!

To all you site owners who had requested me to add links, I'm sorry it took so long. It's been difficult to overcome the inertia I built up on this site (he says, sheepishly). I hope I'm doing better now! If you have an Odyssey-related site you'd like me to add, e-mail me.

Announcing: The Odyssey² Games Database!

The new section I promised earlier is finally here! I am pleased to introduce the Odyssey² Database, the first step in creating a comprehensive guide to all Odyssey/Videopac cartridges and games released all over the world. Browse the cartridge lists by region, then look up specific games for screenshots, box scans, foreign equivalents, and descriptions! I plan to constantly add to the database, making it as complete as possible. For now it's still somewhat bare, although I believe it does contain (nearly) every known cartridge title.

Longtime visitors to this site may notice a similarity to the FAQ page, and that's no coincidence. My aim for this database is to outdo the games listing portion of the FAQ – to be more complete, and better laid out. The problem with using the FAQ as a games database was that it was too hard to update, and there was no way to integrate it with the rest of the site easily, or to make it searchable. With a real database, all of that is possible, and I plan to do it eventually. Also, I wanted to gain some experience with ASP programming, and this project was a great way to do that.

So I invite you to take a look at the database and tell me what you think. It's been tested, but there's always the possibility of an error being overlooked. If you notice a problem such as a performance error or incorrect information, please e-mail me. (You don't need to point out missing information; I know there are many gaps. :) I'll be filling them in over time.) Suggestions for improvements are welcome as well. Thanks!