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Odyssey 400, the other white one . . .


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When my camera is back from "vacation" I'll take some pics and post them.

 

August 22 EDIT: My camera is back here are the promised pics.

 

blog-1571-1124755387_thumb.jpgblog-1571-1124755406_thumb.jpg

 

The Odyssey 400 is three, three, three games in one console! Smash, Tennis and Hockey. This unit feels like it's going backwards from the Odyssey 300. Once again, there are three knob controllers for each person (like the Odyssey 100). Once again, each player has to control the trajectory of the ball after it deflects from their paddle. Different from the 100, this console has AUTOMATIC SERVES (a statement which the manual proudly proclaims in all caps.) which could be considered a step up if one felt the urge to play the system long enough to actually enjoy the all-capped luxury.

 

I wish I could tell you a thrilling story about this unit. Regretfully, after taking it out and seeing what was pretty much an Odyssey 300 with Odyssey 100 controls in an Odyssey 200 colored casing, we just couldn't generate too much excitement for it.

 

I can imagine that for most home videogame players in 1976, you either had one system or you didn't have any. I can't fathom anybody owning and keeping hooked up more than one of these at any given time. Actually, it would be pretty funny if there had been message boards, blogs and forums from that period of the hobby. Everyone talking about how their Atari PONG pWnz Odyssey 300, or vice versa.

 

Something . . . odd . . . about the 400 is the option for "4 player" games. They are really more appropriately called "4 paddle" games. For the hockey game and for the tennis game, a second paddle is added. The second paddle imitates the vertical movement of the primary paddle. It performs this mimicry at a slow, almost deliberated pace, as if it is from a universe with a different inertial setting.

 

All in all. Big yawns. As is this entry. I'm so tired from traveling. I need a vacation after my vacation.

 

Tomorrow, I'll take out my National Instruments Adversary. It's more fun.

 

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They are really more appropriately called "4 paddle" games.

 

Hah! Exactly what I was talking about in the Odyssey 200 entry! Thanks for clearing that up!

 

And also thanks for confirming that the Odyssey 300's controls were more advanced than these (although you could only move the paddles vertically).

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wow, that NEVER occurred to me, that the Odyssey 300's controls were not really 'advanced' as much as they were 'simplified' -- they only went up and down... an accurate statement would be "The Odyssey 300 system lacks horizontal controls for the paddle!"

 

Since Odyssey 300 was my first ever system, I thought of it as "only natural that one could just move the paddles up and down".

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I wasn't referring to the paddle's movement, but rather the fact that you could change the ball's trajectory while using just your movement knobs, ditching that English control that I was never a big fan of. In that respect, the 300 was more elegant, and advanced. Of course the lack of horizontal controls was an over-simplification. Why couldn't they have both controls and the "advanced" deflection system? That's what surprised me in the 400 model, that they decided to go to the previous model instead of improving what they achieved on the 300.

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On 9/30/2012 at 8:59 PM, Nelio said:

I wasn't referring to the paddle's movement, but rather the fact that you could change the ball's trajectory while using just your movement knobs, ditching that English control that I was never a big fan of. In that respect, the 300 was more elegant, and advanced. Of course the lack of horizontal controls was an over-simplification. Why couldn't they have both controls and the "advanced" deflection system? That's what surprised me in the 400 model, that they decided to go to the previous model instead of improving what they achieved on the 300.

oooh, I see what you mean now. Yeah, if I remember right, the 300 had the deflection angles depending on where you hit the ball with the paddle and I don't remember the 400 having it. I could be wrong. I have started again and these out (and hooking them up to a CRT (through an FM demodulator)) is possible again. (for a long time it was possible only using VCRs that were only good for this purpose. those are very dead now.)

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