How was having an Intellivision like? (I never had one but the games look very original)

[IntelliMission]

Thank you all for your replies, I'm glad you liked my idea for the thread.

 

As someone who didn't have the machine as a kid, I have found that most of the games are quite fun, but these are my favorites so far:

 

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin
Armor Battle
Atlantis
Auto Racing
B-17 Bomber
Bowling
Boxing
Chip Shot Super Pro Golf
Horse Racing
Safecracker
Sea Battle
Skiing
Thunder Castle
Triple Action
Truckin'
Utopia
White Water!

 

I especially like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain... I wish I had it as a kid. I absolutely love that so many of the games have multiplayer modes. And I also wanted to give an special mention to later games such as Dig Dug, Body Slam! Super Pro Wrestling or Tower of Doom. I admire how they continued to release games after all these years... Every company should do the same with every single console... forever.

 

I believe fans of Intellivision, Atari and other "pre NES" companies share a lot with fans of 80s and early 90s computers, such as myself. Our systems are usually forgotten when the "official" history of video games is told, making it almost impossible for the newer generations to discover hundreds of amazing games.

 

Dear Intellivision fans: as an European retro gamer that has just discovered these amazing games for your system, let me introduce you to my favorite machine: the Amstrad CPC.

 

Just like the Intellivision, the Amstrad CPC has blocky and colorful graphics, it has loads of awesome games and it is rarely mentioned in articles about old video games. Check out these two video reviews of the system as an introduction: Lazy Game Reviews and Top Hat Gaming Man.

 

Yes, I know what you are thinking... we already have the Commodore 64. Well, there are a number of reasons why this computer may be more interesting for you than the C64. Firstly, the colors are less depressing. And secondly, there are tons of unknowns games: French games, Spanish games and many English games too.

 

To see a selection of quick game reviews for this system very similar to the Intellivision section in the website videogamecritic, check out cpcgamereviews.

 

You can easily emulate the machine using the emulator WinAPE and there is a nice collection of 4000 games in Archive .org. I would divide the games in the following categories:

 

- Early "Intellivision-ish" games: 1984 games for the Amstrad CPC look very similar to the games that appeared from the Intellivision. Check out Raid! Over Moscow or the amazing Bruce Lee.

 

- Games that use the awesome and blocky 16 color mode: Check out this funky versions of Contra, Commando, Yie Are Kung Fu and Tim Burton's Batman (this last one is very interesting for console users, as it's a superior version that follows the movie very closely, unlike the console "japanized" versions).

 

- Text adventure games: There are more than 500 in English. You can't find these in consoles.

 

- Games ported from the ZX Spectrum that use the "hi res" 4 color mode: My personal recommendations are 3 English games that were never released for any console: Saboteur, Head over Heels and Matchday 2, an incredible soccer game with a co-op mode.

 

- Late "16 bit-esque" games: In the early 90s, the system received several notable 16 bit ports such as Defender of the Crown, Prince of Persia or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coin op.

 

The Intellivision was released 5 years earlier and, even if it has much less games than the Amstrad, most of them are really good and you can play with friends too. It is ahead of its time and offer awesome mutiplayer experiences that are more difficult to find on the Amstrad. I really need to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain, and I hope somebody can also discover some hidden gem among the Amstrad games I have mentioned. In the end, it's all about making these systems the visibility they deserve, as video games are more than Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Microsoft.

Edited September 6, 2019 by IntelliMission

[IntyFanMatt]

2 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

The Intellivision was released 5 years earlier and, even if it has much less games than the Amstrad, most of them are really good and you can play with friends too. It is ahead of its time and offer awesome mutiplayer experiences that are more difficult to find on the Amstrad. I really need to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain, and I hope somebody can also discover some hidden gem among the Amstrad games I have mentioned. In the end,

AD&D Cloudy Mountain is amazing and is considered a classic.  It will always be my favorite Intellivision game, hence my profile pic.  But there are soooooo many more great games that you can play and add to your list.  Don't forget the Activision and Imagic titles, many of them are gems.  You're just getting started!

[IntelliMission]

9 minutes ago, IntyFanMatt said:

AD&D Cloudy Mountain is amazing and is considered a classic.  It will always be my favorite Intellivision game, hence my profile pic.  But there are soooooo many more great games that you can play and add to your list.  Don't forget the Activision and Imagic titles, many of them are gems.  You're just getting started!

 

The thing is, I actually don't even like most of these genres. I'm more into graphic adventure and soccer games! So it's incredible that the strategy and RPG games of the Intellivision have managed to get me so interested. There is a simplicity to these games that has been lost. I love that none of these games has more than 3 lines of text... I hate it when games take themselves too seriously and try to be movies, and the Intellivision is refreshing in that regard.

 

Oh and yes, I also like simple minigames, so I love Triple Action, Boxing... Intellivision has several gems here.

[spacecadet]

12 hours ago, BydoEmpire said:

 

 

This looks a lot like how I remember playing too... on the floor, right in front of the console TV, with the system and games also on the floor. Except I remember having either a giant stack of games and other crap, or having them all spread out so I could easily pick and choose among them

 

One thing I think was different about gaming in those days is that it was both easier to switch between games (modern games often require you to learn the intricacies of how to play them well, and I always forget where I even am if I don't play for a couple weeks) and the games stayed fun in short bursts for longer. I was still playing Horse Racing and MLB Baseball, which were two games I got with the system or shortly after, in 1983. I'd just go back and forth between all my games.

 

Regarding the controller, I never had a problem with it. All the controllers back then sucked in some way, and it was just a question of what you were used to. Modern controllers are all pretty good and we just argue over dumb stuff like whether one's slightly too small or another has the thumbstick in the most ergonomic position. But back then, every system's controllers had significant problems. Between the Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecoVision and Atari 5200, I'd put the Intellivision's controllers at or near the top of that list. The discs made it possible to do smooth movements and had 16 possible directions, the keypad made more complex, computer-style games possible (and the overlays were actually useful), and they were very light. They were uncomfortable after long periods of gameplay but so was every other controller at the time.

 

The Intellivision II controllers were slightly worse but they were also detachable, which was a plus. The big negative to the Intellivision II controllers for me was always the keypad, which had zero tactile feedback to tell you that you'd pressed the right key, or any key. The original controllers had a "dome" for each key that worked just like a rubber dome keyboard, so you could at least feel when you'd pressed a key.

[+frankodragon]

Before even owning an IntelliVision,  (I only had an Atari 2600) I was introduced to one at somebody's house and we played Snafu.  I was blown away with the music/sound on one of those woodgrain large console TV's back in the 80's.

[IntyFanMatt]

55 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

 

The thing is, I actually don't even like most of these genres. I'm more into graphic adventure and soccer games! So it's incredible that the strategy and RPG games of the Intellivision have managed to get me so interested. There is a simplicity to these games that has been lost. I love that none of these games has more than 3 lines of text... I hate it when games take themselves too seriously and try to be movies, and the Intellivision is refreshing in that regard.

 

Oh and yes, I also like simple minigames, so I love Triple Action, Boxing... Intellivision has several gems here.

Agreed. The simplicity, yet surprising depth, to some of these games is what makes them so great. Intellivision was a pioneer in these RPG style games, and even though I don’t play current RPG games today, I always go back to AD&D.  It’s that good. And yes, so many more great games to play. Thunder Castle is an incredible game too that really pushed the system’s graphics and sound. We could go on and on lol. 

[mr_me]

Biplanes is a good example because it's supposed to be a copy of a simple arcade game.  But the intellivision programmer added velocity/lift/stall that adds a lot to the game play.

 

I have to say that I've never sat on the floor to play intellivision, pong, or any home video game.  We always had it on a side table that we'd pull up to the couch to play. 

[nick3092]

22 minutes ago, mr_me said:

I have to say that I've never sat on the floor to play intellivision, pong, or any home video game.  We always had it on a side table that we'd pull up to the couch to play. 

Our living room layout didn't really allow for that (narrow, with the TV on one short end, love seat on the other, and a couch and recliner opposite each other on the long sides). I have very fond memories of the console being about 3 feet from the TV on the floor, while me, my mom, my uncles, brother, and friends (whoever was over at the time) all took turns playing Coleco, Intv, and 2600 while laying on our stomachs on the floor.

[ASalvaro]

I remember when the Intellivision ESC came out I bought it like 2 weeks after it was released and I paid $169..I would call Toys R Us every week to see what games it had for it and I would get the same Scooby Doo,Mind Strike,Jetsons every time I would call..thats when I  realized nothing new was coming out and I basically wasted $169 lol

 

[mr_me]

I had a similar but different experience than ASalvaro in 1983.  I had a 1983 Mattel Electronics catalogue showing all the new hardware and cartridges.  I particularly was looking for Treasure of Tarmin, Space Suttle, and World Series.  In 1983, the department stores near me suddenly pulled video games off the shelves; no bargain bin sales.   I wouldn't have been interested in old cartridges anyway.  We didn't have a Toysrus at the time, I called every electronics store in town until I finally found one that was getting new cartridges.  I was able to get Burgertime and finally Bumpnjump, and paid regular prices.  I didn't even know the ECS Computer Module was even released until I saw it on the internet.

 

And I can remember two friends that had intellivisions and they both were on coffee tables while we sat on the couch to play.  I have vague memories of playing the atari 2600 but don't remember sitting on the floor either.  I remember DodgeEm, Vanguard, River Raid, Boxing.  I remember thinking the games are too simple, joystick awkward and gave me blisters.  I did like Boxing on the 2600 and was impressed you could play against the computer.

 

Edit:

Intellimission, what country are you from?  In the mid 1980s different regions had different home computers that were popular, zx spectrum in the UK, here in Canada it was Commodore (never knew someone having an Apple or Atari computer), I heard Amstrads were popular in Spain.

 

I'm glad you recognised Intellivision Auto Racing, it's a cartridge not many liked but I always had fun with; driving on the edge of losing control and spinning out.  Going back to games having more depth in play, PGA Golf is another example.  It looks like a simple flat overhead game but shots have 3D trajectories programmed and you can hit over trees and sand traps.  Nobody was doing that in those days.  Skiing is another where pressing the edge button lets you drift a little before cutting in for the turn; little details like this adds to an otherwise simple game. 

 

The two player aspect of some of the early games was more of a product of the times.  There simply wasn't room on a 4k cartridge to program computer AI.  Program storage capacity was an advantage of early computers.  Also at the time many families had one TV, and multiplayer only games didn't seem unusual.

Edited September 7, 2019 by mr_me

[IntelliMission]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

Intellimission, what country are you from?  In the mid 1980s different regions had different home computers that were popular, zx spectrum in the UK, here in Canada it was Commodore (never knew someone having an Apple or Atari computer), I heard Amstrads were popular in Spain.

 

I'm glad you recognised Intellivision Auto Racing, it's a cartridge not many liked but I always had fun with; driving on the edge of losing control and spinning out.  Going back to games having more depth in play, PGA Golf is another example.  It looks like a simple flat overhead game but shots have 3D trajectories programmed and you can hit over trees and sand traps.  Nobody was doing that in those days.  Skiing is another where pressing the edge button lets you drift a little before cutting in for the turn; little details like this adds to an otherwise simple game.

 

I am Spanish... The Intellivision was not even released here. And yes, those sports games look simple but addictive. You can play those for a few minutes and have some quick fun, you don't need to be playing video games 4 hours a day. For me, good games are not very long: Monkey Island, the Intellivision multiplayer games, Shadow of the Colossus...

 

Amstrad was very popular here, yes. It was the only 8 bit computer that included a monitor. Many users didn't use the machine as a video games console: my father used it to program parabolic movements and 3D shapes for 3 years until he gave it to me.

 

The other day, I realized how lucky I was to be able to have this machine for 3 years (9 to 12 years old) with a color monitor: my father could have bought the green monitor version of the computer, which was 30% cheaper, as he didn't really need the colors to write text and draw lines. One of my friends at the time had this "black and green" version.

 

As I said, some of the early games for the Amstrad CPC were very "Intellivision-ish", and some of them even looked suspiciously similar to Intelliivison games: check out Amsgolf, Harrier Attack, Alien Break-in, Campeones, Bustout, Maggot Splat, Match Point, Snooker, Amstrad Frogger, Haunted Hedges, Chuckie Egg, Oh Mummy, Slapshot, Amsoccer, Roland Ahoy!, Fantastic Voyage, Space Hawks or Moon Buggy and you will easily see how they look very much like one of the games here.

Edited September 7, 2019 by IntelliMission

[mr_me]

Intellivision had a presence in most of europe and seems to have done well particularly in Italy.  There must have been something specific with Spanish laws or regulations that made it counterproductive for Mattel.  The Atari 2600 also had difficulty, being too expensive in Europe.  Did the Atari 2600 make it to Spain?  I assume the Philips Videopac/Odyssey2 was there and maybe having a keyboard had something to do with it.  Had you heard of the Palson CX-3000 or any other video game system in Spain?  Perhaps you were too young to remember.

[IntelliMission]

My first memory of a video game is with the ZX Spectrum: my father showed me the game Cookie, he used to have that computer before he bought an Amstrad CPC. I assume it must have been around 1985. And I remember sitting on the floor to touch the thing.

 

8 years later, I was able to play International Soccer on the Atari 2600, that one of my best friends still had. I recently saw a 1988 Spanish Christmas toy catalogue and the Atari 2600 was there.

 

I just found a topic in a Spanish forum where one user says that someone bought an Intellivision in Spain, but I wasn't able to find any more information. Perhaps it was released but with very few units.

Edited September 7, 2019 by IntelliMission

[mr_me]

That post you linked was of the black and silver intellivision made by INTV Corp after 1985; the time of nes and sega master system which I assume were in Spain.  It could be that the Mattel Intellivision never made it to Spain or did so poorly it was completely irrelevant.  Mattel stopped making Intellivisions in 1984.

Edited September 7, 2019 by mr_me

[Walter Ives]

On 9/7/2019 at 3:39 AM, mr_me said:

The two player aspect of some of the early games was more of a product of the times.  There simply wasn't room on a 4k cartridge to program computer AI.

It's good of you to recognize this rather than just complain that there were no one-player mode for many of the games. A one-player mode was added to Baseball as soon as 8K cartridges were deemed affordable. Even so, it was quite a challenge to write a few K of logic that could reasonably compete against the human brain. The result was less than perfect, but it was OK. Its best use was to let you practice so you could later crush your friends—for that it was great. For what it's worth, I think the original Baseball game is one of the all-time greats.

 

 

[Keatah]

I believe that these six systems gave excellent coverage of home gaming:

Atari 2600

Intellivision

Colecovision

Atari 800

C64

Apple II

..those three consoles, those three computers. Very representative of 70's and 80's gaming. Each machine had plenty of ports and personality. Each machine took on its assigned challenge in different yet effective ways.

 

Inty was the most downtempo of the cartridge-based systems. The action was slower especially in contrast to the hi-nrg 2600. And we liked it that way. Going back and forth all the time. Many say the controllers sucked. They were different and we didn't think anything of it. We played the games and enjoyed the keypad & overlays. Always felt inty made better use of them than Colecovision did of theirs.

 

Also appreciated that there were less low-budget inty carts than there were 2600. 2600 was just ripe with garbage toward the end. In no way does that diminish the 2600, just pointing out fact and what was going on.

 

I remember being exposed to one ad for inty and decided I wanted to get one. Don't recall whether it was print or tv. But the most surprising thing was that there would now be TWO major cartridge based systems on the market!