Top 50 Intellivision Games (As Determined by You)

[+wongojack]

I compiled a top 20 ranking from the results of the recent tournament. 1 - 9 was pretty easy just by viewing the results of rounds 3 and above. Besides the direct winners, I favored positioning in the group and then used vote total across the last 4 rounds to break any ties. By positioning in the group, I mean for example that Shark Shark finished ahead of Tower of Doom in Round 4 group B, so regardless of previous votes, SShark is 3rd in that group and then would compare to the 3rd place game in Rnd 4 group A B&B. I then used total votes to rank SShark vs B&B. To determine positioning for places 10-21, I had to pull in vote totals from round 2. This method was decisive for every position except #12 & #19 where I made a judgement call and declared Atlantis #12 ahead of Tron because of it's large vote total in Rnd 1. I also chose to place Dreadnaught Factor #19 ahead of Dracula because of the fact that it received so many votes as the best shooting game. Nightstalker technically made it into Rnd 3 but received no votes, so I've left it completely out of the top 20 (er . . . top 21). If that is too complicated for you, no problem. Here is how it shakes out:

1 Treasure of Tarmin

2 AD&D (Cloudy Mountain)

3 Burgertime

4 Astrosmash

5 Thundercastle

6 Beauty and the Beast

7 Shark Shark

8 Bump 'n Jump

9 Tower of Doom

10 Major League Baseball

11 Lock 'n Chase

12 Atlantis

13 Tron Deadly Discs

14 Utopia

15 World Championship Baseball

16 Diner

17 World Series Major League Baseball (ECS)

18 Chip Shot Super Pro Golf

19 Dreadnaught Factor

20 Dracula

I compiled more results and produced a ranking all the way to 50. There were a few examples of games being included in round 2 to fill out the arcade and sports groups, so I used the combined totals of round 1 and round 2 except where a game was moved to round 2 when it didn't earn it's way. To break ties, I used the game's vote count in round 2 as there was stiffer competition in that round.

21 Beamrider

22 B17 Bomber

23 River Raid

24 Demon Attack

25 Las Vegas Poker & BJ

26 Nightstalker

27 Locomotion

28 Spiker

29 NFL Football

30 Pitfall

31 Bombsquad

32 Qbert

33 Super Pro Football

34 Dig Dug

35 Worm Whomper

36 Space Battle

37 Ice Trek

38 Microsurgeon

39 Skiing

40 Chess

41 Happy Trails

42 Truckin

43 Stadium Mud Buggies

44 Pinball

45 Horse Racing

46 Sharp Shot

47 Mountain Madness

48 Sea Battle

49 Mind Strike

50 Thin Ice

Thin Ice is a bit of a wild card. It did not participate in round 2, but its round 1 vote total was higher than the combined total of some games that participated in Rnd 1 and 2.

There is another group of games that would qualify as honorable mentions. These are PacMan, NHL, Star Strike, Tennis, and Auto Racing. PacMan and NHL were high vote-getters in round 1 but ultimately lost out. Star Strike was in round 2 receiving only 1 vote while Tennis and Auto Racing both finished second in their round 1 groups without getting moved to round 2.

Beyond that it gets to games that really only participated in round 1, so it is very hard to compare those that were not in the same group.

[wolfy62]

Looks great to me Wongo! Super job!

[Intellfan]

Nice top 20 Great job . i would only change one thing for my list . I would put in Bi Planes and take out Lock and Chase but that is just my opinion not based on votes

[wolfy62]

ok.... if there were a change that would be the one!

[+JasonlikesINTV]

That is a solid top 20 list. It would be a great place to start for anyone new to the console. Also, a good chunk of those are decently affordable and common. Nice job!

[AtariTexas]

Great job!

[+wongojack]

I think the real weakness of this top 20 is that there isn't a single intellivoice game. Also, I think 1 baseball game is enough for any top 20 list. I would remove 2 of the baseball titles, and slide everything up, putting Nightstalker and Space Spartans (or B17) at the bottom as #19 and 20. There are plenty of other substitutions that I might make based on personal preference (Pinball would be one), but if I was telling a new collector what to pick, I'd recommend making those 2 initial substitutions to help with variety.

[+JasonlikesINTV]

I'd definitely add Night Stalker. Maybe bump Chip Shot?

[+cmart604]

I knew we could count on you Wongo, thanks for compiling this in as logical a way as possible. This really is a great starting point list for someone new to the Inty, although for that matter the top 50 would be easy enough to fill out too.

[vprette]

I think the real weakness of this top 20 is that there isn't a single intellivoice game. Also, I think 1 baseball game is enough for any top 20 list. I would remove 2 of the baseball titles, and slide everything up, putting Nightstalker and Space Spartans (or B17) at the bottom as #19 and 20. There are plenty of other substitutions that I might make based on personal preference (Pinball would be one), but if I was telling a new collector what to pick, I'd recommend making those 2 initial substitutions to help with variety.

 

B17 I would say

[+wongojack]

Another Representation:

 

 

 

 

Listed by total votes from round 2 and above:

 

107 AD&D (Cloudy M)

102 Treasure of Tarmin

66 Burgertime

56 Thundercastle

44 Astrosmash

29 Beauty and the Beast

28 Major League Baseball

28 Utopia

27 Bump 'n Jump

26 Lock 'n Chase

25 Tower of Doom

23 World Championship Baseball

22 Shark Shark

22 Atlantis

22 Tron Deadly Discs

20 Diner

18 World Series Baseball (ECS)

14 Nightstalker

13 Dracula

13 Dreadnaught Factor

11 Chip Shot

[+intvsteve]

The surprise to me is Dracula. I can see the argument to drop one baseball game between MLB and WCB. WSMLB is in a category of its own and is more of a merit/innovation-based inclusion rather than popularity. MLB would get my vote between the two 'regular' baseball games.

 

The only knock on Biplanes is that it has the albatross of the car racing game around its neck. And I'm sad that Beamrider didn't show. That's the nature of these things.

 

Great compilation! Thanks for putting in the effort.

[+wongojack]

And I'm sad that Beamrider didn't show.

 

Great compilation! Thanks for putting in the effort.

 

I think Beamrider would be in the top 30. I'll keep working on the data and see how much further out it makes sense to extend. One problem is that I don't think the round 1 results are all that interesting from a wide perspective because of the lack of seeding, but I'll see what I can do.

[+wongojack]

Initial post updated to include rankings all the way to #50

[Intellfan]

And still no Bi Planes LOL DOH!!

[+cmart604]

Initial post updated to include rankings all the way to #50

 

Well done you. Neat to see this laid out. Now let the debates begin anew, as we are want to do.

[Flojomojo]

Neat, a tournament. It looks like it was fun to run this. I can't remember if I voted in the runoffs but I like the results.

 

The "problem" (yes, I know it's just for fun) with that methodology as I see it is that you're running the games against each other instead of rating them objectively against a standard, a "perfect" game. The tournament works well for win-lose sports contests like tennis and football, but is ill-suited to rating things subjectively. We don't usually see a tournament-style run-off for books or films, for example.

 

If you took a straight poll of anyone interested to rate all the different games listed there with numerical ratings from 1 to 5 (including 0 for "don't know/haven't played), then ranked them from high scorers to low, I wonder what would happen to the order of the list? That would give a chance for well-done but not necessarily popular games to rise up the rankings. It's not like they're competing with each other for our time and attention so much as they need to break through barriers to cost and attention.

 

Would anyone be interested in participating in a just-for-fun survey as I described? I can set it up and embed it here if so.

[+wongojack]

The "problem" (yes, I know it's just for fun) with that methodology as I see it is that you're running the games against each other instead of rating them objectively against a standard, a "perfect" game. The tournament works well for win-lose sports contests like tennis and football, but is ill-suited to rating things subjectively. We don't usually see a tournament-style run-off for books or films, for example.

 

If you took a straight poll of anyone interested to rate all the different games listed there with numerical ratings from 1 to 5 (including 0 for "don't know/haven't played), then ranked them from high scorers to low, I wonder what would happen to the order of the list? That would give a chance for well-done but not necessarily popular games to rise up the rankings. It's not like they're competing with each other for our time and attention so much as they need to break through barriers to cost and attention.

 

 

Right, you are pointing out the difference between an opinion poll vs actual experts ranking something. This "tournament" was the equivalent of American Idol voting for their favorite rather than the Grammys selecting the best in a specific field.

 

The ranking method you describe has already gotten started. There is another thread with a few pages of people's top XX lists that could be weighted and then added to over time (similar to the one on the 2600 board). It just needs someone to organize it. I was going to take a crack at that next, but I wanted to sort of finish up with this current ranking (which I did not organize or originate).

 

That being said, you could kick something up that might be even better - I say go for it.

 

Also, games are constantly competing for my time and attention. The games I already own will take me more time to play than I have hours left to live. I haven't done the math, but I don't really think I'm exaggerating there.

[Flojomojo]

Yeah, I could put up a big poll that can run for a while. It's not like this is scientific or matters anyway, I get that.

 

Agreed on stuff competing for attention -- but I don't feel like Intellivision games compete with themselves, but against sleep and sex and work and movies and internet and music and exercise and modern games ...not necessarily in that order. What a tourney that would be.

 

My massive Steam collection (mostly unplayed) is several lifetimes' worth of content, I'm sure.

[+DZ-Jay]

 

Right, you are pointing out the difference between an opinion poll vs actual experts ranking something. This "tournament" was the equivalent of American Idol voting for their favorite rather than the Grammys selecting the best in a specific field.

 

 

Except that is not true either. As has been pointed out in the other polls, the way that the contests were prepared and the groups selected was not conducive to give any accurate picture of opinions beyond the top ranking game. If you compare, say, "Kool-Aide Man" against "Math Fun," one of them will get some votes; but if you compare "B-17 Bomber" or "Nightstalker" against other favourite games, they may not get any chance. This would give you the false impression that "Kool-Aide Man" is preferred over any of those two, based purely on skewed votes.

 

Personally, I think the utility of the list to a new comer is limited. In my opinion (and it seems I am not alone in this, based on other comments), many great and popular games will be completely missed, in favour of three baseball games and some minor games.

Edited June 26, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[+wongojack]

 

Except that is not true either. As has been pointed out in the other polls, the way that the contests were prepared and the groups selected was not conducive to give any accurate picture of opinions beyond the top ranking game. If you compare, say, "Kool-Aide Man" against "Math Fun," one of them will get some votes; but if you compare "B-17 Bomber" or "Nightstalker" against other favourite games, they may not get any chance. This would give you the false impression that "Kool-Aide Man" is preferred over any of those two, based purely on skewed votes.

 

 

Yep that is true, and you've made your opinion on this clear from the beginning. I don't disagree, but I don't really think the list has many "skewing" errors and the example you use is really far away from what actually happened. The top 10 look like a pretty great list that might be re-ordered under different circumstances, but any top games list might include those 10. I think if a new person found this they could easily pick from the next 3-5 games (21+) to replace the extra baseball title(s) and have a great top 20.

[+DZ-Jay]

Well there were there were some polls with mostly second rate or less popular games, virtually guaranteeing that at least one of them will get some votes; and others with mostly popular and top rate games, again forcing some to get pushed out.

 

This was addressed somewhat by putting them into a second round, which should show their popularity, but apparently if they got eliminated in the second round, you didn't include them in your top 10.

 

It's fine, you guys did your poll in your own way, and tried to compensate with arbitrary rules and changes here and there, but lets not kid ourselves that it reflects any consensus on popularity.

 

I do agree that most in the top 10 are very good games, but a poll wasn't needed to identify them, much less month full of them.

[Bixler]

The top 10-20 will definitely be of use to me as I slowly begin to put together a nice Intellivision collection, thanks!

[+wongojack]

I'll state again that you make a valid point. I think these rankings are pretty suspect, but I still had fun with it. After looking at the data, I think we can learn the most from rounds 3 and above because the competition is better and more votes have simply been cast for those games. I didn't really find the process a waste of time. The value of the tournament to me was it helped guide me to specific games that I could play that I may not have ever tried before. Instead of a straight top 10, this built up to a final and I had fun getting there with the rest of those on the board. For example, I spent a lot of time with Tower of Doom that I wouldn't have without the tournament. I took the time to understand it and even helped contribute to an online guide. This wasn't one of my favorite games before, but it is now. Similarly, I discovered what a nice version of Chess they created for the platform, and I will likely go back to that in the future too. There is no way that I would have ever played Chess without this competition.

 

 

This was addressed somewhat by putting them into a second round, which should show their popularity, but apparently if they got eliminated in the second round, you didn't include them in your top 10.

 

 

Huh? How would I do that exactly? I didn't change anything about the results. If the game was eliminated then it finished below games that weren't. I wasn't trying to build my personal top list. I was reporting back to the community what the data revealed. Round winners and runners up advanced. As far as I could tell, this was Valter's plan all along - to advance the winners round by round. It wasn't an afterthought. The data created from this poll won't reveal anything specific about the quality of games eliminated that early except that they as a group are perceived as worse than some others. Because CMart suggested it, I attempted to use the data to rank the games out to 50. To build the list out that far, I just ordered the round 2 games by their vote total, and I made some decisions when there were ties.

 

Still I don't really think there was a game eliminated that early that belongs in the top 10, but opinions will vary. I personally like Space Spartans. It is in my personal top 3 for the system, but just because it got eliminated doesn't make me question the validity of the entire competition. I'll still continue to like it, but this gives me a chance to explore some other games that others seem to prefer.

 

 

It's fine, you guys did your poll in your own way, and tried to compensate with arbitrary rules and changes here and there, but lets not kid ourselves that it reflects any consensus on popularity.

I do agree that most in the top 10 are very good games, but a poll wasn't needed to identify them, much less month full of them.

 

This wasn't my poll any more than this is my Intellivision forum. I just compiled the data and gave a pretty clear explanation of what it told us about the games.

 

 

I'm neutral here, and I thought this was fun. It seems you had a problem with this method from the beginning. I understood your point then, and I understand it now, but you keep standing up straw-man arguments like somehow we voted KoolAid ahead of Nightstalker or that there is some poor game that got eliminated while we all have to pretend to like Learning Fun. What you are claiming happened just didn't happen, and you'd be more convincing if you came up with a factual point with which I could agree or disagree.

[+wongojack]

The surprise to me is Dracula. I can see the argument to drop one baseball game between MLB and WCB. WSMLB is in a category of its own and is more of a merit/innovation-based inclusion rather than popularity. MLB would get my vote between the two 'regular' baseball games.

 

The only knock on Biplanes is that it has the albatross of the car racing game around its neck. And I'm sad that Beamrider didn't show. That's the nature of these things.

 

Great compilation! Thanks for putting in the effort.

 

I've come around on WSMLB. The top list probably needs an ECS game and that seems to be the best one, and as you say, it does so much more than the other baseball games that it stands on its own.