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.