Flash Point Introduction

Please note that our cartridge release of Flash Point is already sold out

The Odyssey3 Command Center should have been the successor to the Odyssey2 game computer in the United States. Several prototypes were made, but the big video game crash prevented a release of the machine. Beside the prototype hardware there exist also some prototype games for the Odyssey3. Most of them are just well-known Odyssey2 games with additional background graphics (like the Videopac+ and Jopac games in Europe). But there was also one game rumored to exist, that would be unique to the Odyssey3 Command Center: Rex Battenberg’s Flash Point, inspired by the arcade game Robotron, but with enhanced features.

For many years this game was the holy grail for Odyssey2 and Videopac fans. With the help of a person in the United States, whose father worked for Magnavox back then, we could make a dump of a Flash Point prototype cartridge. After playing it, I knew that this is a really remarkable game for the system, so I asked the author, Rex Battenberg, if he would agree with a cartridge release of the game and I am very happy that he did!

A release of an NTSC version for the Odyssey3 would not have made any sense, as there are only a dozen prototypes of the machine known to exist so far. Fortunately the game also ran on the European Videopac+ machines (G7400 and Jopac), allthough with some minor graphics issues. But with the help of Rene van den Enden, who knows the Videopac system like the back of his hand, we got a perfect PAL version of the game.

You can download the game from this website and play it on O2EM, but I really want to encourage you to buy the cartridge, when you have access to a G7400 or Jopac game computer – for one simple reason: Flash Point features two-joystick-control! Rene van den Enden patched the game so it can be played with just one joystick too, but you get the real excitement only when you use both joysticks! You can move your tank with the left joystick and at the same time shoot independently in a different direction with the right joystick – you will for sure get much higher scores that way than with one joystick. I built a simple joystick holder that comes with the cartridge, so you can enjoy the game really like it was originally intended. Played that way it is a blast!

Don’t miss that milestone for the Odyssey/Videopac system!

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