Unlike any other system at that time, the Odyssey 2 included a full alphanumeric membrane keyboard, which was to be used for educational games, selecting options, or programming (Magnavox released a cartridge called Computer Intro!

The area that the Odyssey 2 may be best remembered for was its pioneering fusion of board and video games: The Master Strategy Series.

Its graphics and few color choices, compared to its biggest competitors at the time—the Atari 2600, Mattel's Intellivision and the Bally Astrocade—were its "weakest point".

Prior to the nationwide release of the Mattel Intellivision in 1980, the console video game market was dominated by the competition between the Odyssey 2 and Atari 2600.

To sell would-be customers on its resemblance to a home computer, the Odyssey 2 was marketed with phrases such as "The Ultimate Computer Video Game System", "Sync-Sound Action", "True-Reality Synthesization", "On-Screen Digital Readouts" and "a serious educational tool" on the packaging for the console and its game cartridges.

Videopac game cartridges are mostly compatible with American Odyssey 2 units, although some games have color differences and a few are completely incompatible, such as Frogger on the European console, being unable to show the second half of the playing field, and Chess on the American model, as the extra hardware module could not work with the console.

Titles of games were translated into Portuguese, sometimes creating a new story, like Pick-axe Pete!, that became Didi na Mina Encantada!

(Didi in the Enchanted Mine) referring to Renato Aragão's comedy character, and was one of the most famous Odyssey games in Brazil.

The Odyssey 2 was released in Japan in December 1982 by Kōton Trading Toitarii Enterprise (コートン・トレーディング・トイタリー・エンタープライズ, a division of DINGU company) under the name オデッセイ２ (odessei2).

The emulator works on Linux, Microsoft Windows, DOS and other platforms, and is included within OpenEmu for Mac OS X. O2EM (originally not open source) was created in 1997 by computer programmer Daniel Boris and further enhanced by André Rodrigues de la Rocha.