DZ-Jay

Open Your Heart - Madonna

The interview with Howard Scott Warshaw itself is worth the price. It is very interesting and candid. dZ.

You know, not having seen the game before, I got most (if not all) of that from the C=64 video posted before. The biggest difference that I see is that the bar graphs for the dog loyalty and neighbor health has changed to just numeric values due to space constraints. That's fine, and fits the Intellivision style of games. -dZ. -dZ.

Definitely. Joe and I worked on that for Christmas Carol, but I didn't have time to prepare a nice and polished score board and make it to CGE 2012, so I scrapped it. The only bit that was left was storing the state of "Saving Christmas," which unlocks Stage #8 in the practice menu. It is stored on the cartridge flash memory so you won't lose it when shutting down the machine. Flash-persisted score tables is a feature that I certainly plan to use in the future. -dZ.

Actually, you don't have to bite the policeman with the zombie, just collide with him. -dZ.

You bite a man and turn him into a zombie temporarily, then you can use the zombie to bite and kill a policeman and get extra points. The zombie is moved with the second controller, so it's sort of hard unless you have a friend, or very good coordination. The zombie lasts for about 10 seconds only. -dZ.

I was joking, of course. It does look awesome and very doable on the Intellivision. -dZ.

I see a sixth Mars mini game...

Looks great!

It is plainly clear that it depends on the individual. As can be seen among this and other fora, review ratings are pretty much subjective, and the scales are arbitrary. Some don't treat 10 as "Perfect," which is unattainable, while others certainly do. Like ignorama said, the review description provides the context. Interesting points all around! -dZ.

I agree, and for what it's worth, I wasn't arguing about your or anybody's personal rating... that's up to the individual. It was more a rant against magazine reviewers that rate games on impossible or unreasonable standards, which is useless. At the end of the day, an unreasonable or arbitrary rating will not help me decide whether the game is worth buying or not. Wow, I'm truly honoured. :):) -dZ.

Joe programmed the Snowman's howl and "boom-boom" walking sound, and a few other sound effects. Oh, he also did the "tinkling" sound when Carol dies. dZ.

I think you misunderstood me. I don't think any Intellivision game is perfect. Most definitely not. What I feel is that there are very good Intellivision games, classic and home-brews. When I classify them myself, I give the best the highest mark. I do the same with the music in my collection. To me it is meaningless to have a bunch of 4-out-of-5 songs without a single 5-out-of-5. That means that I've just limited my scale from 1 to 4. I take the best ones, the ones I like enough to listen over and over, and mark them as 5. Does that mean they are perfect? No way! It just means those are the ones I like the best. If I listen to a new song, I then compare it against the range. That allows me to have a more granular range, where "4" represents "very good" and "5" represents "great!" (Likewise, a score of "1" is a song that I dislike so much, that I wouldn't miss it if it didn't exist.) I judge video games the same way. Actually, I judge them in various criteria, such as story, sound, music, graphics, game-play, and handling controls. If I grant the realities of game development and understand that a perfect game is very unlikely to exist because we are human with varied tastes and experiences, and also because this is a hobby that requires huge commitments in time and effort; then I discard "perfection" from my scale and set "10" to represent "The Best In Class." Nonetheless, if by chance I ever live to see a perfect Intellivision game--unlikely as that may be--I would have no qualms in acknowledging so, and granting them an 11-out-of-10 score. What the heck, after all, perfection blows the curve. -dZ.

Heh, and old Japanese card-based games with cute Pokemon-like characters amidst naked nubile girls. LOL!

LOL! No, not you. I was thinking more like Cmart or Rev or JasonlikesIntv...

Give me one example of an Intellivision game that you qualify as a 10, just to understand the extent and hight of your scale. If by chance you have none, then it means your criteria is impossible to meet, if in 30 years not a single game has achieved it. I say, then, that your scale is from 1 to 9, nine being the best and 10 being an elusive perfect game that can never exist. Again, I am not arguing that Carol or D2K or Space Patrol should get a higher score. I'm quite impressed and pleased that you liked my game enough to even consider rating it. Indeed, 8.5 is a terrific score. Thank you, and I sincerely wish it lives up to your expectations in re-play. I'm just arguing that a scale that includes a "perfect score" that nothing can achieve is not a true way to measure in the real world. We should be rating the games that exist against the realities of the console, not against some absurd criteria that cannot be met. Das ist alles. -dZ.

Whoa! Easy there, cowboy. Someone in this forum is going to have an aneurism! dZ.

Grips03, Show the little kids the manual. It looks like a comic, with cute pictures, and if you read it to them, they may get excited by the whimsical and cute story. In the center of the manual there's a two page spread of the characters. Show them the picture of the Evil Snowman to familiarize them with it, and so they know it's just like any other cartoon monster. Let me know how it goes. I hope they don't get too scared. dZ.

Walk-and-shoot monsters on the surface of Mars!! Come on!

Looks awesome, GroovyBee! -dZ.

Except that she'll probably just e-bay them herself! Dude, you should get a lawyer and put it in writing. -dZ.

Yes. I don't recall right now which, but I know there are some. I think Dracula is one: Top buttons turn into a bat, lower-left is bite, lower-right is bite-to-turn-zombie. -dZ.

I got my Match 5! I'll play it tomorrow. Cool! -dZ.

Yes, but Carol threads have an unusual tendency to derail. LOL!

Oh! Well, Joe would be proud!