Complete: Odyssey 2 Adventure Magazine Collection

 

Started: January 1982 with the first issue

Finished: Late 2019 with the final issue

Magazines were an absolutely critical part of the early days of videogaming, and in an era with no internet, absolutely essential for players to learn about upcoming releases for their systems. In addition to commercially published periodocals like Electronic Games, most game companies began publishing their own public relations type of magazine, and the Odyssey 2 had Odyssey Adventure Magazine.

The first issue arrived, if memory serves, shortly after or at the same time as Christmas of 1981. Inside the console box was an application for membership in the Odyssey Adventure Club, including a one-year subscription to the magazine.

Of course I was all in on that, and each quarterly issue seemed to arrive with the latest big game release. Just as I was picking up Pick Axe Pete in the summer of 1982, the latest issue arrived heralding the game's release. As a young nerd, I also began corresponding with the magazine, getting replies (I will someday detail that correspondence in another article), and submitting tips.

I did not renew my subscription after getting the first five issues, and picked up the sixth issue at the local Magnavox dealer. Which was good, because my tip for Invaders from Hyperspace was published in that issue. By mid 1983, I was moving onto the Commodore VIC20 and the console videogame crash was underway, so I assumed that there were no further issues of Odyssey Adventure Magazine anyway.

I found out years later that I was wrong when digging through the archives of Digital Press, which emerged as the central videogame collector's website of reference once the internet was available. There was indeed a seventh issue featuring the game Turtles on the cover, and I no longer had a complete collection of Odyssey Adventure Magazine.

Thus, when I turned to Ebay in 2019 in order to complete collections of Electronic Games magazine and the North American Odyssey 2 Software Library, I also began a constant search for that missing issue. Of course, it was the rarest. The premiere issue is fairly common, but later issues become more rare as you get toward the end of the run.

I finally found it afer six months in a set with other issues and promotional material, and paid a pretty penny for it. The postmark is dated July 25, 1983 and it was filled with the usual articles, and since it is basically a part of a company's public relations, no sign that the whole company was about to collapse and Odyssey was almost finished with videogames.

Magazines from that era are a treasure trove of information, sure, but they also capture a lot of the energy and joy of a larger gaming community coming together for the first time to share our love of this hobby. Odyssey Adventure Magazine was always a positive and hopeful publication with an eye on a future that never came for the brand, and now I finally have a complete collection, and thus a more complete picture of Odyssey's final days.

Beaten: Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise (Switch)

 Sometimes, a game's story, characters, and all-around quirkiness can help the player overlook technical issues and seemingly primitive graphics. There has never been a much better example of this than the two Deadly Premonition games. 

The cult status of the first one, emerging in the years after its release, is testament to this."How did you know it had cult status?", one might ask, to which I answer "I saw a boardgame version of Deadly Premonition at a videogame trade show a few years ago." That's how you know a game has made it, just ask Zaxxon.

I downloaded Deadly Premonition Director's Cut for the Playstation 3 as a Playstation Plus free game at some point in the 2010s, sat on it awhile, then checked it out in 2016 and loved it. It's a silly masterpiece but a joy to play. Lots of it is original, some of it is derivative, but all of it is such a refreshing change from the giant studio cookie-cutter stuff (I'm looking at you Ubisoft) that I couldn't help but play, if just to see how wacky it was going to get.

When an unexpected sequel turned up on the Nintendo Switch this summer, I decided my enjoyment of the first game warranted a day one purchase.  Plus, I'm sure the cult fame of the first one granted the team more development funding and therefore the second game would be a much more polished one.

Well, not so much, and the rageful internet panned the sequel's technical issues and other gliches, as it is rightful to do. Nonetheless, and once again, everything under the hood the game is running along fine in terms of story, character, setting, music, and style. 

As the main character Francis York Morgan, you are tasked with solving murders in the small town of Le Carre, Louisana. There is a supernatural element to it as well, and in traditional Japanese norms, a bright and fiesty teenage girl sidekick. It's set in a relatively small open world which the player navigates by skateboard (fast travel is unlocked early on though). 

Combat is fun enough with just one gun that uses rubber bullets -  but I only counted 6 enemy types (3 natural and 3 supernatural) and 3 boss fights total. All of it was easy and not frustrating at all, which is good since the focus of the game is in interacting with the zany characters and solving the case.

Lots of side quests (kill 30 squirrels, gather ingredients for something. etc.) and some unique mini-games (stone skipping) add filler that is good, because sometimes you get stuck without much direction as to what to do. At one point, I was supposed to find 6 Anaconda Skins at "Park". I visited what I thought was the park, looking for anacondas and not finding them. Later, I realized that the skins were just more random loot lying around the park.

Crafting exists to use up all that random loot, but as usual, I did not dive in too deep. After some basic enhancements to my gun and physical stats, I really never found the crafting something I wanted to or needed to return to time and again.

The overarching story between both games comes to a head in a climactic and satisfying conclusion, wrapping up all the character threads and opening a small door for more Deadly Premonition. I hope a third game does show up in a decade or so, because the game's technical primitiveness is only forgivable by its charm, and I don't think that anyone's patience with those issues could be put aside for more frequent installments. 

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is a fitting sequel and yet another triumph of substance and style over technical expertise and programming elegance. I'd recommend it only for gamers who still care about that difference and want something truly unique once in awhile.