INTV Best Game of All Times - Round 1 - 13/25 (shoot'em up 3rd)

[vprette]

This is one of the pools to vote the best games ever for Intellivision :-)

There will be several pools of 5 titles each to cover the following categories:

 

- Best game of all time

- Best sport game

- Best shoot'em up

- Best arcade conversion

- Best producer

 

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More shoot'em ups.

 

Edited April 18, 2014 by vprette

[AtariBuff]

Like Worm Whomper but I'm voting for Demon Attack as it's the only console version featuring the mothership.

[Fushek]

AtariBuff has a great point ... Demon Attack was fun, a bit creepy and had the mothership! Vote cast!

[+JasonlikesINTV]

Gee, what Jason's gonna vote for?

 

Seriously, though. I haven't played much Buzz Bombers, but these are hands down 4 of the best shooters for Intellivision. Take out WW and I'd really struggle. My list:

 

Worm Whomper

Demon Attack

Super Cobra

Centipede

Buzz Bombers

Edited April 18, 2014 by JasonlikesINTV

[+intvsteve]

Another really tough grouping. I had to go w/ Worm Whomper, but it was a *really* tough call over Demon Attack. Both have excellent, smooth animation, and it's really just a coin toss as to which to vote for. The speed, fluidity, and massive number of worms (awesome GRAM programming) tipped that balanced coin just over to WW. I like the look of Demon Attack's graphics (more colorful), and it has pretty good sound, too, but WW truly has a special place as the top "twitch" game for Intellivision that I could actually feel somewhat adept at.

 

For the arcade port, I had to go with Centipede. Another great job by Atarisoft, and I really like the faithfulness of the sound effects. (At least to my memory.) I was never a big Super Cobra player, but the "animation" when your chopper gets shot down really bugs me for some reason.

Edited April 18, 2014 by intvsteve

[+cmart604]

Solid group of games here, not a bad one in the bunch. I went with WW as well, tough call over Demon Attack. Super Cobra is a game I really like although I think I play the CV one more than the Inty version.

[JoeM_Intellivision]

I LOVE Worm Whomper but never had it as a kid - played that one when I got into collecting in like 1992. Demon Attack I had when it 1st came out and I absolutely loved it - the Mothership Graphics were awesome and who could ever forget that 1st voyage up to the Mothership. I went with Demon Attack by a ball hair over Worm Whomper. In 2nd grouping went w/Centipede - didn't play Super Cobra so not to familiar with that one.

[Oscar G.]

Same with me… tough decision between Worm Whomper and Demon Attack as both of them are fabulous games.

 

I went for Demon Attack simply because of the beauty of it (the moon, the earth behind) and, of course, the epic boss fight.

 

I wonder if this is one of the first games ever to feature a boss fight.

[+thegoldenband]

I'm bewildered by the praise for Demon Attack! Sure, it looks nice, but the controls are so buggy/erratic that I found it impossible to fully enjoy.

[+wongojack]

I'm bewildered by the praise for Demon Attack! Sure, it looks nice, but the controls are so buggy/erratic that I found it impossible to fully enjoy.

 

I'm bewildered too actually. I don't really have a lot to complain about regarding the controls, but the problem with Demon Attack for me on the Intellivision is that on the VCS and even the O2, the enemies were some of the most colorful and interesting looking creatures on the entire system. On the Inty they just become single color squiggles or something that looks like a single color decorative stamp in a scrapbook. You looked at the box art with the space demons flying and then played the VCS game and it connected you to the story. Those enemies were awesome and even a bit scary. On the Inty I just think the game loses that connection because of a very simplistic enemy design.

 

The game does play better with my custom joystick I built btw.

[+DZ-Jay]

AtariBuff has a great point ... Demon Attack was fun, a bit creepy and had the mothership! Vote cast!

 

But, but, but, but.... Worm Whomper!

 

what the hey?

[+intvsteve]

Regarding the colors in Demon Attack... Atari VCS supported line-by-line color and may have even had a deeper color palette, I think, so it was "easy" to do that sort of thing. Intellivision moving objects are one color, so to render a multicolor enemy that can move anywhere on screen, you either use multiple MOBs (one color per MOB, limit of 8 MOBs), or start getting really fancy with your background tiles and graphics RAM (which has strict limitations and performance requirements). Given how the enemies move around, they are MOBs.

 

If you carefully look, you'll notice that there are 8 total moving objects onscreen most of the time. The first wave has 2 demons, each 2 colors (4 MOBs), your ship (1 MOB) and up to three shots on screen.

 

The second wave has the splitters, which again follow the same math. The third wave also has the 'linked' MOBs.

 

Then there's the more general nature of what the graphics chip supported. There were 16 total colors, and for background tiles you had two colors per tile. Depending on the graphics mode, and whether you used stock built-in images vs. custom ones, your color choices were further constrained.

 

I agree that the VCS version has more colorful baddies. But the Intellivision version has the entire mothership stage and a larger variety of distinctly different enemies with significantly different attack patterns and a wider variety of weaponry. IIRC the VCS version enemies mostly just wiggle in different patterns and drop plain old bombs, while the Intellivision ones have exploding missiles and guided missiles as well.

 

The VCS version of Demon Attack is also an awesome game, but as Imagic consistently did when delivering a title to multiple platforms, they didn't "port" the game, they kept the kernel of the game's concept and built a version of that game to best exploit the target system.

[JoeM_Intellivision]

nice post intvsteve - thanks! I keep hearing from a lot of people that Atari 2600 Demon Attack was better and can't speak to because I never played it. I also never believed it either though. The fact that inty jad Mothership stage qas already a big plus. But now that you mention the extra set(s) of aliens plus the extra bombs/weaponry, I would agree with you 100%! I do plan to play the Atari 2600 version so I can speak more from experience though - soon enough.

[+wongojack]

Regarding the colors in Demon Attack... Atari VCS supported line-by-line color and may have even had a deeper color palette, I think, so it was "easy" to do that sort of thing. Intellivision moving objects are one color, so to render a multicolor enemy that can move anywhere on screen, you either use multiple MOBs (one color per MOB, limit of 8 MOBs), or start getting really fancy with your background tiles and graphics RAM (which has strict limitations and performance requirements). Given how the enemies move around, they are MOBs.. . .

 

I assumed they had limitations and didn't simply choose to make them look like sh!+ BUT they still look like sh!+

 

Also it isn't just that their appearance looks bad - it detracts from the game's story.

 

As for the mothership, I'd rather just play Phoenix on the VCS anyway.

[Rev]

Im surprised Worm WHomper isnt winning!

[JoeM_Intellivision]

Hi Rev, I think it has to do with nostalgia as not everyone had Worm Whomper as a kid (myself included) combined with Demon Attack being another awesome Imagic title. While WW may be better currently, my vote went to Demon Attack for what I expressed above - didn't get WW until 1992. That said, I'm a little surprised at how easily Demon Attack is winning with slightly more votes than other 4 games combined.

Happy Easter everyone!

[vprette]

winner is:

demon attack

 

second place:

worm whomper

 

goes to arcade round 2:

centipede