[The São Paulo Leaf, Feb. 1, 1984]

New Odyssey Cartridges Finally Arrive at Stores

Although it has been some time since the launch of a new series of Odyssey cartridges was announced, Philips has only now started to deliver the first strategy cartridges for its videogame console.  One is “In Search of the Lost Rings” – a game that can be played by up to five players, who must rescue ten magical rings hidden in the kingdom by the Ringmaster.  The battles for the rings can be set in four different places, with heroes chosen by the players. The heroes have individual characteristics; they can bewitch the monsters of the castle, pass through walls or elect to be invisible.

With the commercialization of “In search of the Lost Rings”, Philips intends to strengthen its advantage in manufacturing the only videogame console with an alphanumeric keyboard incorporated in its cabinet. In the new cartridge, the keyboard is used to select the battlefields and to control the monsters of the Ringmaster.

The new Odyssey cartridges costs 75 thousand cruzeiros and is part of a series that also contains “Conquest of the World” and “Wall Street,” an action game and a game of sales and purchasing. In the coming months, they will also have the cartridges “Baseball,” “Eat-Eat II,” “Turtles” and “Acrobats.”

Although it possesses a spotless finish, with trays, tokens and a pretty instruction manual that describes the game in story form, the cartridge only has a regular image, with a graphical resolution much on par with other videogames on the market. The sales distribution has also been delayed.  In one search of stores in the center of the city last week, only Cinótica has received the cartridge for sale.

PHOTO CAPTION: “In Search of Rings,” strategy game