who likes the disc controllers and who does not?

[dj_convoy]

Not a fan, but I didn't grow up with it. I agree with Blarneo; the side buttons are the worst part, to me (they bug me on the CV and 5200, as well). 

[+Lathe26]

For folks that don't like the side buttons because they were too stiff for them, the Intellivision Flashback controllers are a good option (with an adapter cable).  If you didn't like the side button because they were on the side, then the Flashback controllers don't help there.

[Flojomojo]

3 hours ago, Blarneo said:

You never gave it a chance. ? It is an acquired play mech, but with time, it's much more playable than Auto Racing, which is unnecessarily complicated and unrewarding.

I gave it a chance. I rode my bike out to get it brand new, for $30 in early 1980s money. It's easily in my top ten of worst gaming purchases ever.
 

The disc is fine. Vectron is not. 

[Hwlngmad]

My only experience is with the Intellivision Flashback unit.  That being said, I thought it was pretty good and I could do the things that I needed to do.  I understand if it is not everyone's cup of tea, but I thought they were good for the most part.  However, those controllers for the ColecoVision flashback...  Holy sh*t they were bad.  I guess if I played with it a bit longer I could get used to it, but I just don't see how people successfully play with that and/or the original ColecoVision controllers for that matter.  Okay, sidebar over.  Yes, I liked the controller when I played with it on the Intellivision Flashback and look forward to seeing what they plan for the Amico.

[jaybird3rd]

Another vote of "Yes!" for the Intellivision hand controller.  I still find it to be a reliable controller which, when used properly, is both comfortable and functional.  (Well, admittedly, the Intellivision II controller is less so.)

 

The sixteen-direction disc is useful in several ways, beyond merely being able to move sprites in a straight line in eight additional directions.  Having twice the number of discrete values in one 360° rotation of the disc gives the programmer the opportunity to perform finer-grained decoding, which is helpful in games where the player has to swirl around in a tight circular motion (which happens all the time in Shark! Shark!) or round tight corners (in games like Lock 'n' Chase and especially BurgerTime).  I also found it useful in an unexpected way when programming the Aquaricart user interface: the disc decoding routine that I wrote allows the user to hold the disc up or down and then spin it at different speeds to scroll through the main menu as quickly or as slowly as desired, implementing something that works a lot like the click wheel.  That wouldn't have been possible with only eight directions.  This behavior was quite accidental at the time, but I'll make deliberate use of it in future games.

 

Speaking of the Aquaricart, my favorite hand controller of all is actually the Aquarius hand controller.  It's an elegant distillation of the Intellivision controller design which offers a few improvements.  It's the narrowest and thinnest hand controller that Mattel ever made, and is very comfortable to hold.  It eliminated the side buttons, and changed the flat membrane keypad to a matrix of raised rubber keys, making the action buttons both easier to reach and easier to distinguish by touch.  Reducing the number of buttons to six minimized the number of conflicting Gray codes, making it possible to (for example) move and shoot at the same time in Night Stalker with a single controller.  I also like the overlay design: instead of a thin mylar sheet which slides over the keypad keys, the Aquarius controller overlay is a thick plastic frame which drops effortlessly in place around the keys, documenting them without covering them over and minimizing wear of the overlays themselves.

[mr_me]

9 hours ago, mr_me said:

Vectron is unplayable with fewer than sixteen directions. ...

 

9 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

This I can agree with.

Vectron is not perfect but it's one of the better Intellivision cartridges.  Your adult self knows better than your twelve year old self.

 

4 hours ago, Blarneo said:

You never gave it a chance. ? It is an acquired play mech, but with time, it's much more playable than Auto Racing, which is unnecessarily complicated and unrewarding.

Auto Racing is very simple, automatic acceleration, only button action for braking.  Steering is left/right. Shouldn't take long to figure out, and once you do it's very rewarding.  There are some cartridges, including white labels, that have the original broken rom and would give people trouble.   Auto Racing is one of my favourite intellivision cartridges.  It's actually very playable with an 8-way dpad but also works well with the disc.

[Tommy Tallarico]

On 9/25/2019 at 12:45 PM, vprette said:

I keep finding people around that despises the intellivsion controller.... not ergonomic, disc is not accurate etc. etc.

I DO LIKE A LOT THE intellivision controllers!

how can people say so bad about it: I honestly wonder if many of those people used it for real..!!

 

so please help me understand..

I typically find that people who don't like the original controller.... either only had an Intellivision II or never played the original system when it came out.

Easy for someone to play it now and say it sucks... but it was absolutely amazing when it first came out and had so much more control than anything else that came before it.

 

[Tommy Tallarico]

On 9/25/2019 at 5:04 PM, IMBerzerk said:

It's much better with a Stickler only because you can avoid Intellivision Thumb.

I fixed that for Amico as I made sure to raise up the disc so that when it's pressed down... it is FLUSH with the controller as opposed to grinding the top of your thumb into a plastic crevice. 

 

[Tommy Tallarico]

On 9/25/2019 at 5:07 PM, fdr4prez said:

Numb Thumb is typically from the side buttons more than the disc - at least for me 

Agreed!  We fixed that as well.  The 4 buttons now are a LOT bigger, concave, rimmed higher on one side and super comfortable (with a great "click" instead of a soft button).

[Tommy Tallarico]

On 9/25/2019 at 6:08 PM, Flojomojo said:

The poll needs a "meh" option.

 

The console is 40 years old and while it was controversial once, I feel like we have moved on. They best part of the controller was the keypad overlay, which could be mapped to different functions for different games. It was like a very simplistic touch screen, giving you more input choices than 8 directions and a red button. 
 

I would prefer a joystick for something like Pac-Man. I like buttons for things like Defender. The disc is fine but I wouldn't choose it over a dpad or twin analog sticks. 
 

It's like playing games on a laptop with a plastic trackpad. It can be done, but a mouse or a controller is better. 

Question for you... did you have an original Intellivision when it first came out?  When was the first time you played an Intellivision?  Was it an Intellivision II?  Just curious.

The disc was never controversial in the 70's or 80's.  It only seems to be controversial in more recent times (last 10 years or so) for the folks who grew up with the NES or later.  Meaning... the disc was foreign to them and they only knew a D-pad.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2019 by Tommy Tallarico

[Tommy Tallarico]

23 hours ago, Papy said:

Personally, as a joystick guy, I found the Colecovision controller slightly better than the Intellivisison controller (at least when I don't take into consideration that Intellivision was 16 directions instead of just 8). For me, the real problem with the Colecovision controller was (as a right-handed person) the bottom left of the controller constantly pushing into my left palm... which is why I strongly recommend wearing padded cycling gloves with cut fingers when using a Colecovision controller (bonus points for looking cool).

 

Of course, the most comfortable controller of that era was, to me, the Colecovision's Super Action Controller.

I think this is the first time I've disagreed with you on something. 

I personally hated the raised ColecoVision joy-disc.  And like you said... the buttons were in the wrong place (although I liked the size!) and even the keypad (although bigger) never felt as good as Intellivision.  I much preferred the Super Action Controller (especially for the sports games) but recognize that I'm probably in the minority on that. 

 

[Tommy Tallarico]

21 hours ago, mr_me said:

The only eight-way game that the disc has trouble with is snafu diagonals.

Totally!!  I felt the same way.  And it still kinda sucks... so I cut out diagonals in the new SNAFOO.

But don't worry... there's so much more cool stuff that you'll never miss them.

 

 

 

[Tommy Tallarico]

15 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

^^^this. 16 directions is a 1979 talking point. Something like Vectron or Space Hawk is perfectly playable with fewer compass points, just as Food Fight works fine on the Atari 7800. 

Bi-Planes, Shark! Shark!, Tron Deadly Discs were all amazing though.  They wouldn't be the same with a d-pad.  Even a game like BurgerTime was WAY better on the Intellivision disc.  Even though the original arcade was a joystick.

Just my opinions though.  Thoughts for others may vary. 

 

[Tommy Tallarico]

14 hours ago, mr_me said:

The rubber might have gotten stiffer over time as well.  A slight modification can improve them.

 

Your wish is my command. 

[Tommy Tallarico]

9 hours ago, Blarneo said:

You never gave it a chance. ? It is an acquired play mech, but with time, it's much more playable than Auto Racing, which is unnecessarily complicated and unrewarding.

Me & my little brother LOVED Auto Racing.  I honestly can't remember which steering version we had... but we loved trying to hit each other off the road.  We laughed and had so much fun with just that little game mechanic.

I'll have to give Vectron another try.  I never had it when it came out so only played it for the first time over the past 10 years.  Hated it initially... I'll try to give it another go.

 

[mr_me]

11 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Bi-Planes, Shark! Shark!, Tron Deadly Discs were all amazing though.  They wouldn't be the same with a d-pad.  Even a game like BurgerTime was WAY better on the Intellivision disc.  Even though the original arcade was a joystick.

Just my opinions though.  Thoughts for others may vary. 

 

Biplanes in triple action actually used the 16 directions to make tighter or larger loops.  Today, the controls feel upside down.  Up should push the nose down and down should pull up.  I might just hold the intellivision controller  upsidedown to play.  How's the Amico version going to be?

7 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

...

I'll have to give Vectron another try.  I never had it when it came out so only played it for the first time over the past 10 years.  Hated it initially... I'll try to give it another go.

 

You won't like the controls in Vectron.  Games that force you to use the action buttons on both sides of the controller are rare on intellivision.

[IMBerzerk]

48 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

I fixed that for Amico as I made sure to raise up the disc so that when it's pressed down... it is FLUSH with the controller as opposed to grinding the top of your thumb into a plastic crevice. 

 

Thanks Tommy.  I noticed that in the renderings and pics.  It looks like a lot of little things were considered in the design.  

 

Hey... I have an offer for you... A ride in your Ferrari for a ride in my 65 Fury.  ??

[YerOut]

10 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

I typically find that people who don't like the original controller.... either only had an Intellivision II or never played the original system when it came out.

Easy for someone to play it now and say it sucks... but it was absolutely amazing when it first came out and had so much more control than anything else that came before it.

 

My 1st Home Video game experience was on my older Brother's 2600.  We played games that were called Atari Football and Baseball.  Both pretty dreadful and the unforgiving Atari joystick was a joke.  Then George Plimpton came into my life.  My thinking was that a controller as advanced as the Intellivision's meant the entire system had to be an upgrade over the Atari.  I think I was right.

p.s. Hated the Coleco Action controllers ( that lasted for about 3 weeks before breaking down).

[Tommy Tallarico]

10 hours ago, IMBerzerk said:

Thanks Tommy.  I noticed that in the renderings and pics.  It looks like a lot of little things were considered in the design.  

 

Hey... I have an offer for you... A ride in your Ferrari for a ride in my 65 Fury.  ??

DEAL! 

 

 

[Swami]

21 hours ago, Blarneo said:

You never gave it a chance. ? It is an acquired play mech, but with time, it's much more playable than Auto Racing, which is unnecessarily complicated and unrewarding.

I hear this acquired taste thing a lot about the Intellivision controller, but it makes it sound like vegemite or lutefisk. 

[Blarneo]

29 minutes ago, Swami said:

I hear this acquired taste thing a lot about the Intellivision controller, but it makes it sound like vegemite or lutefisk. 

I was actually talking about Vectron. Their only game in the "Arcade Network" they made. 

It's a weird game. Its strange play mechanic puts people off, and it bears very little resemblance to Tempest which is rumored to inspire it.

But it is unique and hats off to the designer who came up with something so off the wall.

[Flojomojo]

It LOOKS really interesting, enough to make me wonder what could have happened with enhanced cartridge games or a sequel console. I just find it unplayable and obtuse. I raise a glass to everyone who actually likes it.

 

[+Lathe26]

I like to think of Vectron as "Microsurgeon 2: Below the Belt".  You're just continuing the battle against diseases down there.

[Papy]

On 9/26/2019 at 10:34 PM, Tommy Tallarico said:

I think this is the first time I've disagreed with you on something.

Oh, I'm sure you will disagree with me on a lot of things. For example, we all know French cheese is better than Italian cheese!

[+fdr4prez]

3 hours ago, Papy said:

Oh, I'm sure you will disagree with me on a lot of things. For example, we all know French cheese is better than Italian cheese!

And they are both better than American Cheese