Not much Intellivision in Sheffield

[decle]

I'm on vacation in the Midlands of the UK at the moment, and in addition to visiting lots of excellent industrial heritage sites, we've been on the lookout for a retro gaming fix.

 

We spent the afternoon at the National Videogame Museum in the centre of Sheffield.  This was OK, but I don't think it's as good as either the National Museum of Computing or the Centre of Computing History.  Although there were a few earlier arcade machines to play and consoles behind glass, the exhibit really focused on playing console games from the period between the NES and the XBox 360.  Other than a glut of Mario and Sonic, the choice of games seems a bit random, and is obviously limited by the need to remain completely family friendly.

 

Looking round, I only managed to find a single reference to the Intellivision, and that was in the Donkey Kong video wall.

 

 

The Intellivision description reads...

 

"The Intellivision was the first 16-bit console. As well as a curious "telephone" controller design with a numeric keypad, it was also the first console to feature speech synthesis with its "Intellivoice" expansion pack.

 

Donkey Kong - The Intellivision version was programmed by Coleco who also programmed the Atari 2600 version. The Intellivision's graphics capabilities mean things look a bit blocky and Donkey Kong is a sickly share of green!"

Now, I'm not saying that the Intellivision was embarrassed by Donkey Kong being the standard bearer for the machine, but the console (actually an emulator) wasn't working.  Probably for the best!

 

So, if you're a retro head in the neighbourhood I'd be inclined to save your pennies and take a trip down the road to the Game and Movie Store instead.  Unfortunately, there was no Intellivision in stock, but discipline is still required!  They have everything from the 2600 and Magnavox Odyssey 2 onwards.  Lots of lovely boxed consoles and accessories in excellent condition.