Intellivision Lives With Classic Console Compilation

Thanks to 1UP for their review of Intellivision Lives! for Xbox, as "the Atari 2600's most successful rival" in the U.S. gets its own retro compilation, also released for PlayStation 2. The review appreciates the "well-crafted collection" encompassing "roughly sixty games for a wallet-friendly $20", and savors the way "the games are presented via arcade machines within an amusingly kitschy virtual '80s pizza parlor." Although it has some issues with the in-game controls, since "...the Intellivision had intricate controllers featuring a numeric keypad", the piece concludes by noting that "...fans of the system should have no reservations about picking up a copy." We've also previously covered the Intellivision stand-alone 'TV games', as featured on the official Intellivision site.

Locked games

[MMaestro]

I think it'd be amusing to have a hidden game blantently hidden behind a crowd of teenage kids which you have to get through by playing another mini-game.

Are people bored with games?

[bigman2003]

The last 3 Slashdot Games stories:

1- ANOTHER collection of retro games available for modern hardware.

2- A digital carpet that looks like Space Invaders

3- Surround your Xbox in plastic

I wonder if this is a trend of people being bored with modern games. This Christmas is heating up as far as new game releases- but is it just a bunch of the same things, over and over again, and now we are in a situation of what was old, is new again?

Re:Are people bored with games?

[codejunky]

I think that this is more a trend of people in marketing knowing they can make a quick buck on peoples nostalgia for the oldschool games. The only real problem I would have with buying something like this is that out of those 60 games, people have probably played anywhere from 5-15 because the other 45 or so just made you want to rip your right hand off and beat yourself up with it. The controller is also an issue, but with all of the buttons that controllers have today, I guess its not that big of a deal

Re:Are people bored with games?

[babyrat]

You may be correct about the 45 crap games, or rather 45 games, some of which appeal to others, but not you (or me). However let's say there are 10 games you used to play and enjoy - that's $2 per game that you'd use. If you play each of those games for 15 minutes, that's 2.5 hours of entertainment for $20 - that's about the equivalent in time and prices of a movie with popcorn and a drink.

The controller is everything

[Mechanik]

From the article:

The more complex games are made even more difficult to play by the compromised controller setup. The Intellivision had intricate controllers featuring a numeric keypad. Certain games required the use of the keypad and a special printed overlay to indicate command functions -- something impossible to replicate on PS2 or XBox controllers. To compensate, a single button press brings up an interactive onscreen image of the Intellivision controller, complete with the proper overlay for the current game. It's a nice touch, but not as helpful as it could be -- the controller graphic obscures a large portion of the game action (which doesn't pause), and the overlay text is hard to read even on a large television. This makes even the simple act of choosing menu selections unnecessarily difficult; inputting keypad entries during the actual gameplay is even harder.

Ok, I know from having had one myself as a kid that the "average" Intellivision game would be quite playable on a modern console controller, as a lot of them just used the directional disc and the fire button. However, some of them would be just plain impossible given the cumbersome "chording" you would have to do with an XBOX or Ps2 controller to get all of the key combinations.

Take a look at this image of the Intellivision [intellivisionlives.com] to see what I mean, or this one of the Intellivision II [intellivisionlives.com].

A game like TRON Deadly Disks [intellivisionlives.com] would be almost impossible to play. (BTW, don't hassle me on interchanging "disc" for "disk", as "disk" was what they used in the game.) In that particular game, you had to use the whole keypad, as you could either throw your disk (using the fire button and aiming with the controllers directional disc), or hold onto your disk and block with it. But when you blocked you had to press the number on the keypad in order to block in the appropriate direction. Try doing that while remembering that (a fictitious example) A + B + Left trigger corresponds to "1" on the old numeric keypad, which you then have to remember corresponded to "block diagonally up/left" in the game. Ugh.

I'm sure they have tried to pick games which used the least number of buttons, but to really recreate the experience for me, I wish this (and the direct to TV versions) came with a replica of the original controller, so that I could actually play everything the way it was meant to be played. The ergonomics and the logic of the way the controls are laid out, even for relatively simple games, would get screwed up pretty quickly as well. Even the direct to TV versions come with some bastardized version of a modern controller, reminiscent of the PS2 or XBOX


Mechanik

Re:The controller is everything

[j0nb0y]

Can't speak for the other consoles (as I don't own them), but this could be modeled easily to the gamecube controller. You would just use the c-stick to block. Methinks that similar mappings would work well for most games.

Re:The controller is everything

[Mike Hawk]

Right analog stick could block on any system's controller.

Kthnx bye gg

Best console of its generation

[slaker]

One of the things that made the intellivision so fantastic was the numeric keypads on the controllers. Combined with the plastic overlays which described what the buttons did in each game, it made for some very satisfying control options.

For example, in "Swords and Serpents", the player using the wizard character could cast 10 different spells from a single button press.

How the heck would that translate to the standard controller on a modern console?

Atari's console was first and Coleco's might've been faster, but IMO the best game experiences were found on Intellivision. A bit like the situation Nintendo is in today. If you've never seen Intellivision games, there are a lot of good ones that really are worth checking out, like "Utopia" and "Discs of Tron".

ColecoVision

[molafson]

The "Atari 2600's most successful rival" was clearly ColecoVision. For those of us old enough to remember, Coleco was the bomb with near-perfect (or so it seemed) arcade ports of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Burger Time, Q*Bert, etc.

Also, Coleco had the Turbo game pack with steering wheel controller and gas pedal. That thing was possibly the best present my parents ever bought me.

Oh, and Coleco had an expansion port on the side into which you could plug a peripheral that allowed you to play Atari carts.

Re:ColecoVision

[Repugnant_Shit]

Yeah, ColecoVision rocked, until my little brother stuffed crayons into all the cartridge slots :|

Nope

[mgkimsal2]

Atari and Intellivision had been going for a few years before Coleco got in the game. I believe Adventure for Atari VCS was out in 1978.

http://www.atariage.com/2600/history.html [atariage.com]
has a bit more.

Also more [intellivisionlives.com]
on Intellivision. Out in 1980, so Atari had 2+ years as the king, then about 2 years of sharing with Intellivision, then Coleco hit.
Atari VCS was out in 1977. Coleco entered the market in 1982.

BTW, I wish people would call it the Atari VCS, which is what it originally was. It wasn't referred to as

Re:Nope

[Badam]

While it's true that it was called the Atari VCS in the early years, it was always model number 2600; so I think it's reasonable that people refer to it as the 2600.

Adam

Re:ColecoVision

[babyrat]

Timeline:

1977 Atari releases 2600
1980 Mattel releases Intellivison
1982 Coleco Releases ColecoVision

Colecovision wasn't a rival of the 2600 - it was a replacement with 5 year newer technology. You didn't buy a Colecovision instead of a 2600 - you begged your parents to buy you one so you could throw your 5 year old Atari in the trash.

Intellivision stand alone TV game

[MacBrave]

I was in Kay-Bee stores a few days ago Christmas shopping with my wife when I saw of these.

I was tempted, tempted, I tell you! But the lack of a keypad turned me away. I'll just have to be satisfied with dragging out my original intellivsion whenever the retro gaming bug bites me.