jaybird3rd Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 But then again, there are no sprites, so not all that interesting to me. Really, sprites are the natural choice for the player cursors in Utopia for CV. Same for the clouds and the hurricanes, at the very least. Yes. The Aquarius definitely suffers from a lack of sprites. All of the objects and cursors had to be built using characters or color maps in Aquarius Utopia, which makes for some interesting visual glitches at times. By the way, I've just uploaded a PDF scan of the Aquarius Utopia manual to my (still-unfinished) website, so feel free to add that to your records as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 By the way, I've just uploaded a PDF scan of the Aquarius Utopia manual to my (still-unfinished) website, so feel free to add that to your records as well. I happen to have a CIB copy of Utopia (and also an Inty to play it on) but thanks anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 (edited) Count me also as a "left-island" guy. I played the game extensively with my Father when I was a kid (I have no brothers, and my three sisters preferred dolls to video games, go figure). Utopia and B-17 Bomber were our favorite games and we played them together (in B-17 Bomber we would take turns, with one actually playing while the other helped out with attack strategies--and of course, the occasional "Bandits! 3 o'clock!" reminder). Anyway, I would always pick the left island, it seemed to me it was superior: it appeared to be placed in a prime position for rain showers, and it had what seemed like a bigger harbour at the bottom. In terms of playing style, I guess I've played them all: the industrialist, the ruthless dictator, and the socialist humanitarian. But eventually I settled into a more balanced role: I actually try to be the perfect leader trying to complement crops and factories with schools and hospitals to keep the people happy and the money rolling in. Thinking back, this may not have been so much for altruistic reasons, but due to a realization of the game patterns that I was trying to exploit in order to maximize longevity and success. As I recall it, my Father ran his island in similar ways (most likely where I took it from). We also had a tacit non-aggression treaty. It wouldn't be rare if one of us would tell the other, "hey! there's three schools of fish here, bring your boats!" Like Joe, we typically played it to the maximum term, and rarely looked at the score, except as a curiosity. We were mostly trying to see how long we could keep our islands running successfully. If for some strange turn of events I started to lose my edge (pirates killing my boats, storms destroying my crops and buildings, terrorists, etc.) and I found myself with an island in crisis, I would occasionally turn to the dark side and try to sabotage my Father's island (yes, I was that kid). But most of the time we just played in concert without confrontations. My Father also ran his island with military discipline. He would build forts, and purchase lots of PT boats to protect his fishing fleet. He would actively go and hunt down pirates, and lament not being able to sink them (I believe he called it at one point a "bug" because it was one of the things he felt were not realistic enough). He would surround his harbours with PT boats to deter pirates. He would give me history lessons on past maritime wars, and express some of his theories on the politics of running a tropical island (we lived in Puerto Rico). I listened intently and absorbed it all. I liked how you could sometimes get lucky and get a couple of schools of fish that were merged together and stayed mostly put in place, and then you'd navigate your fishing boats over them and leave them there until the fish ran out. Sometimes you also got a rain cloud moving so very slow, and it would stay hovering over a particular part of your island, bobbing slightly up and down watering your crops, for what seemed like a long while. The one thing I did not like was the slow responsiveness of the game. It was frustrating when you're working on your crops, and see a tropical storm approaching one of your fishing boats, and you had to move quickly in order to save it; but the cursor reticle would just drag its way there. The bugs, though sometimes annoying, were mostly surprising and fun. I remember one bug where I could "push" a fishing boat into a harbour at the bottom of the left island so that it would be partly in-land, and it would get stuck there until I moved it back out just so. We also experienced the random terrorist while things were going extremely well in our islands. We never considered it was a bug. We just thought the game was programmed to give you an occasional shake up even during moments of prosperity. My Father would say that they were probably just a small band of rebels with personal vendettas against the current administration, rather than actual popular insurgencies, and we'd chuck it up to more "realism" in the game. (At times I secretly wondered if it was just him surreptitiously putting up a terrorist on my island, though it still happened when I played by myself.) When my Father came to visit a few months back, we relived our memories by playing Utopia again (and B-17 Bomber, of course!). It was as good as ever. Truly a great game. -dZ. Edited March 30, 2012 by DZ-Jay 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1980gamer Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 DZ-Jay.... Great story man. I lost my mom and dad 6 weeks apart 2 years ago. I have great memories of playing intellivision with my dad. PBA bowling was dad's fav. But he played a few others. He also liked to watch my brother and I battle playing MLB. Mom, she was a colecovision Donkey Kong fan. She would lean in the direction mario was going, At 12 years old, that would crack me up! I miss them....But I have many great memories. Thanks to intellivision and colecovision, I have vivid memories from 30 years ago. My mom told me she used to dream about playing tetris.... I had that problem with Dr. Mario.... LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkhan Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I have noone to play this with, and playing with myself isn't fun. hah... haha. I also have like 3 copies of the game if anyone wants to buy one... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Utopia was a great game. I played quite a bit with my cousin. I was always the left island. He used to get really upset when I figured out how to give him rebels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkhan Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 How come alot of these INTV games had no AI? It's really hard to enjoy some of this crap when you don't have a player 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 How come alot of these INTV games had no AI? Lack of sufficient resources, I'd say. The CPU was a limiting factor, but the RAM and ROM were probably the biggest limitations. Some of the sports games that were "upgraded" by INTV added single-player modes and computer opponents, because by the mid-80s, cartridge ROM space had become large enough and affordable enough to allow it. Some games, like MindStrike and Chess, required extra RAM for the computer opponents: MindStrike used the RAM in the ECS Computer Adaptor, while Chess was the only Intellivision game to get extra RAM in the cartridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PitfallHarry2600 Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I often play this game with my best friend. As he comes over, we always play 30 terms of 60 seconds of Utopia! Great game Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numan Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Never got the appeal of Utopia on the INTV (one of the few I never got)... convince me otherwise please. Who is this clown? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cparsley Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 I even refuse to post about this guy... anyone coming in with that post doesn't deserve the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numan Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Anybody who comes in and insults a game and then says convince me otherwise is a clown. If you don't like it, don't play it and gtfo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Anybody who comes in and insults a game and then says convince me otherwise is a clown. If you don't like it, don't play it and gtfo. Isn't this sort of thing totally unnecessary? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numan Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Anybody who comes in and insults a game and then says convince me otherwise is a clown. If you don't like it, don't play it and gtfo. Isn't what cparsley said totally unnecessary? Yes, I agree with you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Anybody who comes in and insults a game and then says convince me otherwise is a clown.If you don't like it, don't play it and gtfo.Isn't what cparsley said totally unnecessary?Yes, I agree with you. No, you're being a typical troll and agreeing with yourself. Now please take it somewhere else, because you're not accomplishing anything constructive here. If you want to go on bashing, I would suggest the following: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2k00u_bash-by-milton-bradley_news Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numan Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 So cparsnip trolls on Utopia and that's OK, but if someone call him out on it, it's a problem? Hush up troll lover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) So cparsnip trolls on Utopia and that's OK, but if someone call him out on it, it's a problem? Hush up troll lover. I don't think he was really trolling. He did mention that he was hoping someone would bring out a particular aspect that he missed. It seems to be the case that people have fond memories of the toys of their childhood, regardless of how good they were. He didn't have Utopia as a kid, so he didn't share the memories that some of us did. Notice how the most significant stories on this thread are of people playing with their brother or father, that counts for something. I can understand how someone approaching the game--any game--from outside would feel amiss when lacking that connection. I did the exact same thing in a different thread, one on Night Stalker. While everyone talked about how fantastic the game was, I begged for explanations as to what was it that attracted them, when I never thought the game was any good at all. Turns out that my impressions were made while playing the game at a demo station in Radio Shack for about five minutes. I never owned the game, so I never experienced more than those five minutes. My mind changed immediately as soon as I gave the game a chance and played it again for much longer. Cparsely, you're cool with us. Numan, chill out a bit. We're all here to have some fun and enjoy sharing stories of games. -dZ. Edited April 7, 2012 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mendon Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) As I've said in other posts, our family of five were Intellivision fans of the highest magnitude and had regular gaming nights and contests. Regarding Utopia, my son's never liked the game because, I believe, it wasn't "action" enough for them..... too much strategy and not enough blowing things away. But the wife-unit and I spent many an hour with the game. Sometimes we played "truce" games where we never created havoc with one another and just attempted to create the perfect island. Other times it was all out war as we attempted to sabotage each other's island as much as we could while claiming as many resources as possible. We both won our fair share of games and would discuss strategy and gameplay long after the consle was turned off. No matter the game-play style we used, the game was always a blast and I couldn't begin to count how many times the wife-unit and I played the game into the wee hours of the morning. Mendon Edited April 7, 2012 by Mendon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numan Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Dz, we agree with you that this clearly was a thread to share positive stories about those games from our past, until cparsnip came in and squirted urine on it. May I suggest the group take a game a week for everyone to play it and share their thoughts, be they positive or negative. There the cparsnip urine could flow freely like a waterfall. With over 100 games, this would take two years to cover the Intellivision library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdangela Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 I have to agre,e this was one of the best Intellivision games; love the strategy, always surprised it wasn't remade for other systems during that time thanks for the PC version, not a bad remake Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cparsley Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) Do we need to pull the banhammer out??? Comments like what you are posting is definitely NOT WELCOMED here.... we don't need profanity, urine talk, etc. If you would definitely had LOOKED at the board FIRST before trying to act big, you would know you are sorely mistaken... Edited April 7, 2012 by cparsley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted April 8, 2012 Share Posted April 8, 2012 Numan, please stop crapping in this thread. Your comments are totally unnecessary. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numan Posted April 9, 2012 Share Posted April 9, 2012 I appreciate cparsnip's humility, but I don't believe he should be banned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 For YEARS, I've wanted a version of this game with a AI so I could play it solo. That, or a modern remake. http://www.indiedb.c...emake/downloads Boo, I downloaded this to try and there's no CPU AI player 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted April 28, 2012 Share Posted April 28, 2012 (edited) For YEARS, I've wanted a version of this game with a AI so I could play it solo. That, or a modern remake. http://www.indiedb.c...emake/downloads Boo, I downloaded this to try and there's no CPU AI player 2. Which part of "two-player game" didn't you understand from this thread? Two-player games in the 80s typically did not have any AI because there was no time or space to build it into the game. They used "NI" (Natural Intelligence from your friend or opponent. Games were either strictly one person, or strictly two-person. There are some very rare games that have both modes. -dZ. Edited April 28, 2012 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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