With its action-packed tracks blending nostalgic Synthwave vibes with a healthy balance of modern touches borrowed from EDM and Dubstep, Odyssey by Lost Engineer has hit the retrowave scene with the unmistakable flair of a seasoned producer.

Every track flows impeccably with an irresistible momentum and will dazzle you with its immersive sound design and slick dance grooves.

If this first album is anything to go by, it’s that young producer Maxim Shipp from Saratov Russia has a bright musical future ahead of him.

Favorite tracks : Vaquum, Equinox

Lost Engineer ‘Odyssey’ is out now on Spotify and Bandcamp

Odyssey
There’s nothing quite like a soothing introduction at the start of an album. I’m surprised at the choice of style, which starts off somewhere like a new age track, then slips gradually into the strumming of guitars. We’re lulled into the cradle of sounds colliding and dissipating at the end of the track, parting the way to the next track.

Michael Oakley & Ollie Wride – Wake Up!
It’s always a good time when Ollie Wride is involved, and this partnership of vocals is no doubt a dream come true. This feel-good track has lyrics that could warm the coldest heart. Living life to the fullest, accepting the good that comes, and setting fear aside are just a few golden tokens of motivation that can be found. Falling asleep at the wheel of life is not an option, so you better “Wake Up!” The harmonization between these two talented vocalists is hopefully foreshadowing more collaborations in the future.

Is There Anybody Out There? [Jon Campbell Radio Edit]
There’s a familiarity in the melody of this track in particular, and with it, the teenage angst and rebellious vibe are infused and uplifted by the chorus. The lyrics are endowed by the heavenly voice of Michael Oakley, and that familiarity supplements the spiral of repetition with the arpeggio. Chords lead up to the bridge, bringing us to the final blow of the choir. Finding someone we can relate to is the core message behind the track, and as we get older, we become further apart from who we thought we were in our younger years.

Babylon
The tone of this track opens up to a gradual climb, and Oakley’s voice entrances us into the next phase of the album. The biblical references continue forward, speaking of a heaven-like love endowed with a strength of proportions most dream of. The harmony of vocals paired with the proclamations of protection really bring the chorus together as it resounds through my speakers. The synth truly illuminates the culmination of percussion as the climax is reached, leading up to the delicacy of the sax, opening up a whole new wave of emotion.

Glasgow Song [Ft. Dana Jean Phoenix]
The city streets are bustling with life, and you can almost see the rain on the sidewalks, the grit beneath your feet, and I’m right there as the music befalls the atmosphere. This ballad between two heart-palpitating vocalists is exactly what we needed. The shatter of drums complements the ever-present synth keys and the clash of perfection fills my ears by Oakley and Phoenix’s duet harmonization. The lyrical tone expresses the longing of fate, the destination in the distance, and reaching out for what’s yours. I love that I can visualize the city lights and wet pavement of this journey well-traveled by two amazing artists who are dedicated to the nostalgia we crave. It feels almost like a testament to where they’ve been, where they’ve gone, and where they are headed. The bagpipes are a nice touch to bring reference to Glasgow full-circle, and I can’t help but appreciate it.

Real Life
What is “real” anyway? This song is a fantasy unencumbered by reality. Oakley’s revelations of love and broken hearts have always been irresistible to me in the way of lyricism and the way it manifests in his music. The saxophone returns pulling us into its somber solo moments. The way Oakley combines unique percussions with delicate chimes throughout this track makes it impossible not to keep track of its progression from verse to verse. We’ve all been brought to our knees when desire suppresses our hold on the buzzkill of what’s real. If there is any hope of returning to our memories, we easily trick the mind by reminiscing on what was.

Queen of Hearts
Starting off the track we have a slow and steady melody from the synth and Oakley opening with the main chorus. Roaming old home towns, unrecognizing yourself, and being unrecognized by familiar faces is a feeling we can resonate with to a certain degree. To Oakley, that might be more obvious. I find myself thoroughly enjoying the increase of bpm as the song progresses, and I’m also a little homesick myself so the kick-drum allows me to give into it. The tempo is familiar, the guitar chords dance along with the rise, and by the end, we’re laid down by the calm dissipation of the reverb.

When Stars Collide
I haven’t heard an intro like this since Dido’s “Thank you”, so I’m surprised, but I listen on. I notice the reference to Icarus and as a mythology buff, this is pleasing to hear. The pulse of the chords and the echoes of each word proceed to cradle me in a warmth that is uncommon. Is it the lyrics? Is it the melody? Perhaps it’s both. I’d say this track is more nostalgic of the ’90s and perhaps that was the goal Oakley had in mind. I think the synthwave scene is in the middle of an interesting shift between some of the other notable bands that have been incorporating more of

The harmonizations throughout this album remind me of a lot of Christian rock bands, which I can’t help but point out. Is Christianwave a thing? Anyway, my ADD brain aside, the lyrics point to signs of a love song, and perhaps a bit of overextending the gesture of what it is to be a person of faith. The way that I can interpret these verses vs what Oakley really meant to say may be far from the truth, but throughout the album resides multiple biblical references and verbiage that make it quite obvious to me that whatever kind of love Oakley shares with us is, perhaps, heaven-sent. This is solely an observation, and I invite you to listen and let us know what your thoughts are!

In the 21st Century, when we think of “early video game consoles,” we think quaintly back our box-like gray NES or perhaps our handsome wood-paneled 2600, and we feel a sense of belonging – a sense of rooted nostalgia – in the sense that our childhoods were part of video game history. It’s only right that we do; these and other innovative machines broke new ground for their time and raised the bar for future development. We think of those names… Nintendo, Atari, Sega. Ancient and noble they sound.

The beginning of things was far more humble, but it was a beginning, and a beginning is all it takes.

Ralph Baer, seen here with his “Brown Box” prototype version of the Odyssey.

Born in 1922 in the southwest German town of Rodalben, Ralph H. Baer emigrated with his family to the United States just two months prior to Kristallnacht in 1938. A family of Jewish origin, the Baers feared persecution in Germany and sought a new life in New York. Starting his American dream in a factory at age 12, Ralph eventually graduated from the National Radio Institute in 1940. He went on to be drafted in 1943, assigned to military intelligence in England. GI Bill money enabled him to pursue his Bachelors degree upon returning home to America, which he received in 1949 from the American Television Institute of Technology in Chicago. By 1956, Baer was working at a New Hampshire defense contractor called Sanders Associates, where he oversaw a crew of some 500 engineers who developed electronics systems for military use.

As a side project, Baer began working on the idea of an electronic home game system in 1966. For three years, he and two associates Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, developed a series of seven prototypes for the device. It was this seventh design, dubbed “The Brown Box,” that the trio successfully pitched to Magnavox in 1971. The California-based consumer electronics company (whose name means “great voice” in Latin) saw merit in the idea of a home arcade that a family could hook up to their own television set. Hands were shaken, paperwork was drafted, and the Age of the Console had begun to rise and shine its first rays over a quiet horizon.

Clockwise from upper left: The original Odyssey suite and packaging; the physical paraphernalia for various games; two pieces of promo/ad copy, one of which details the core game library, the other advertising the Shooting Gallery accessory (the first light gun for a home console).

A simple, unassuming white-and-black plastic box also featuring that ever-stylish 1970s wood-paneling texture in a few places, the original commercially-available Odyssey was a wondrous machine to the consumers of 1972’s America. While to modern eyes it may look more like something you’d see controlling a kitchen appliance or a sewing machine, this was a fully-functional electronic device! The Odyssey could be powered by an AC adapter or six C-cell batteries, at the owner’s option. It connected to one’s television by way of a switchbox, presenting itself to the TV as a channel. The arcane device bore with it two similarly-garbed controllers, each of these being slightly bigger than a Band-Aid box and bearing one button and three knobs. The button was used to reset certain display elements during play, while the knobs were used to control the movement of said elements.

Looking to the modern eye more like some baroque alchemical device than a gamepad, the Odyssey’s controller was a refrigerator-white and wood paneled panoply of dials within dials, its clunky shape meant to be rested on a coffee table or other flat surface during play. I would imagine it was quite heavy, and the imagination can easily conjure up a picture of one being used to bludgeon a sibling to devastating effect. Oh, the horror of the dark past.

These “elements,” before screen-mounted visual overlays and the users’ imaginations were applied, consisted of one large square of white and two smaller squares of white on a black background. That was literally the cast & props of every Odyssey game. These games were simply sets of parameters and behaviors, fed into the system’s motherboard by one or more printed circuit boards; All 28 games playable on the console were generated from a final set (as of 1973) consisting of 12 cards. The most complex game was Invasion, which require cards 4, 5, and 6 to play. The games came with the aforementioned color overlays, to be placed over the screen of the TV as both a visual aid and a sort of “game board.” You see, the system itself didn’t even adjudicate the games’ outcomes or scores; players had to to that themselves, too. As a matter of fact, the console and some games came packaged with “accessories,” such as playing cards and paper money, to further facilitate the actual playing of a structured game. In essence, this ancestor of the modern home video game console was little more than a tool… or perhaps more aptly, one of a set of tools, used to play games. Perhaps most age-indicative of the Odyssey’s traits was the now-obvious total lack of audio capability. There was no sound output whatsoever, presenting a 21st-century observer with a heavy and eerie silence as the Odyssey does its work.

This is what the Odyssey’s guts look like. I hope you didn’t just eat; this is gruesome. Imagine paying $100 for this. It’s almost as silly as what they charge for a PS4 now. Things change and stay the same. Only separate notes in an eternal and violent song.

Magnavox began retail sale of the Odyssey system in September of 1972, setting the MSRP at US $99.99 (or just $50.00 when bought with a Magnavox television set). During its inception, Ralph Baer had estimated an optimistic $20 price point for the console, but the addition of extra elements and the usual corporate desire for profit drove the price higher, something Baer is known to have seen as upsetting. While reports from various sources conflict with one another on the exact number of units produced that first year, it is known that somewhere between 120,000 and 140,000 were made. Similar conflicts exist regarding the units sold that year, with the sum ranging from 69,000 to 100,000. While the sales were low overall due to a fairly high price for the Odyssey (in 2017 dollars, the cost translates to almost $600) and a misleading notion that the system only worked with Magnavox TVs, there was enough continuing demand for production to continue through 1973’s holiday season as well. This coincided with a late 1973 ad campaign, resulting in an estimated sale of 125-150,000 units through ’74.

Lawsuits were rampant during this period, as copycats and lookalikes were spawned by various other electronics companies trying to duplicate or cash in on the phenomenon’s buzz. Most Notably, a 1974 suit by Magnavox against Atari, Bally Midway, and other major amusement companies over both the game design and the programming methods used to create them, constituted the emerging VG industry’s first major lawsuit due to copyright infringement. Similar court cases erupted in rapid staccato throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including defendants like Nintendo, Coleco, and Mattel. These court cases not only established the backbone of civil law regarding video games as a commodity, but also made Magnavox and Baer a lot of money (in the hundreds of millions).

Ralph Baer was awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2006, and his groundbreaking console is represented in both the Metropolitan Museum of Art (where the Odyssey is part of a permanent installation) and the Smithsonian (where Baer’s prototypes are kept in the American History part of the institute). In 2014, Baer died at age 92, having given birth to a new age of electronics and home entertainment through his innovative work in the development and commercialization of home video games.

Ralph Baer with President George W Bush (right, seen apparently trying to Judo-throw Baer while looking at a something out of frame) in 2006, as Baer was awarded his National Medal of Technology in Washington, DC. 

When it was eventually discontinued in 1975, conservative estimates place worldwide sales of the Magnavox Odyssey at about 350,000 units. While significant, this net result was not considered a smashing financial success. The “Odyssey” brand would continue through the 1970s with successive dedicated consoles (playing only built-in games) and eventually the iconic Odyssey2 in 1978. It is from this point onward that the “early history” of the video game console ends and the commercial video game industry truly begins.

Close up of the Brown Box prototype. Good thing they dialed it back with the wood paneling. We’re talking unsafe levels of style. 

Once again, thank you for reading… and NRW Gaming wishes you a Happy 2018, and so do I. I look forward to continuing our walk together through the future, as we keep the past alive. Stay Retro!

Everything worthwhile starts with an idea… a dream. May yours come true in 2018, RetroFans!