Breaking news: Intellivision flashback coming to retail

[TrekkiELO]

Dollar General now has their Intellivision Flashback link up with "Coming Soon!" so you can sign up to receive an email when it's available.

 

http://www.dollargeneral.com/product/index.jsp?productId=43753786

 

Free Shipping with $40 Purchase! Up to $15 Shipping Credit.

 

About this product

61 Built in Games with the 2-player Baseball game EXCLUSIVELY for Dollar General. Play with authentically Designed wired controllers and enhance your gameplay with Limited Edition controller overlays.

Game List

• 2-Player Baseball (exclusive to Dollar General)
• Armor Battle
• Astrosmash
• Auto Racing
• B-17 Bomber
• Backgammon
• Blowout
• Body Slam: Super Pro Wrestling
• Bomb Squad
• Bowling
• Boxing
• Brickout
• Buzz Bombers
• Checkers
• Chess
• Chip Shot: Super Pro Golf
• Crown Of Kings
• Deep Pockets: Super Pro Pool & Billiards
• Frog Bog
• Golf
• Hard Hat
• Horse Racing
• Hover Force
• Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack
• Las Vegas Roulette
• Learning Fun
• Learning Fun II
• Math Fun
• Minotaur
• Motocross
• Night Stalker
• Pinball
• Royal Dealer
• Sea Battle
• Shark! Shark!
• Slam Dunk: Super Pro Basketball
• Slap Shot: Super Pro Hockey
• Sharp Shot
• Snafu
• Soccer
• Space Armada
• Space Battle
• Space Cadet
• Space Hawk
• Space Spartans
• Spiker: Super Pro Volleyball
• Stadium Mud Buggies
• Star Strike
• Sub Hunt
• Super Pro Decathlon
• Super Pro Football
• Takeover
• Tennis
• Thin Ice
• Thunder Castle
• Tower Of Doom
• Triple Action
• Utopia
• Vectron
• Word Fun
• World Championship Baseball

Edited September 20, 2014 by TrekkiELO

[daldude]

I Asume the reason they made these controllers removable was that they plan to sell replacement controllers for anyone who breaks that controller or wears out their controllers can get replacement controllers? It's not for the reason they did it for that Atari Flash Back that had controller ports on it because the INTV 2 or Sears Super Video Arcade controllers are not compatible with the Flash Back system and vise a versa without using some kind of an adapter that is made by Intellivision fans that are tech savey.

[popsicle]

Hi, first post here.

 

Since there are 48 pages of this forum already, forgive me if I ask questions that have already been addressed. I've been playing with my Flashback for over a week now (local ToysRUs sold me one early it seems) and thought I would offer my thoughts.

 

I gotta say, I love the controllers. They feel great, have long cords, and the side buttons are a little softer than the originals. The disc has that nice springy-clicky thing going on when you release it, and the keypad buttons are nice are firm. The unit is small, stable, and cute. The menu is easy to navigate. Also, it doesn't get so hot you could fry an egg on it unlike my original.

 

Missing favorites aside, the included D&D games, Utopia, Shark Shark, B-17 Bomber, and Sea Battle are worth the cost alone, IMO. Chip Shot Golf, World Championship Baseball, Slam Dunk Basketball, and Super Pro Football are all new to me, and clear superiors to the original incarnations I grew up with. Body Slam Wrestling is great, and so is Thunder Castle. I have messed around in the past with some of these titles with an emulator, but it's so very different when you have the controllers, overlays, and a real tv.

 

Now, the bad. Sound emulation is inaccurate, and I know I have seen this mentioned here already somewhere The standard 'raspberry' sound you get when you hit a wrong key sounds weird, as does the dealers 'voice' in Poker, the victory gong in Cloudy Mountain, and the Baseball yerrrout voice sample. The missile that blows up the Earth in Star Strike is missing, as is the 'engage' sound in Sea Battle. I've also noticed spamming voices with Intellivoice games, and a slight speed up which doesn't line up with gameplay ("replace this first, this second.." doesn't correspond to the flashing bits). Although not a deal breaker for me, I can't help but wonder why a different emulator was used (again, maybe addressed earlier in this thread?). Bliss, Nostalgia, the Android emulator all seem to have better sound emulation.

 

Also, Tower of Doom seems broken. It won't go into melee mode when I touch a monster.

 

My kids have really enjoyed it too, and it's got them off Minecraft for the time being. My little ones want to play Shark Shark and Snafu, and my 7 year old son wants to play Baseball with me constantly (he loves the overlays!).

[Rev]

Nice mini review Popsicle! And cool icon.

[daldude]

Hi, first post here.

 

Since there are 48 pages of this forum already, forgive me if I ask questions that have already been addressed. I've been playing with my Flashback for over a week now (local ToysRUs sold me one early it seems) and thought I would offer my thoughts.

 

I gotta say, I love the controllers. They feel great, have long cords, and the side buttons are a little softer than the originals. The disc has that nice springy-clicky thing going on when you release it, and the keypad buttons are nice are firm. The unit is small, stable, and cute. The menu is easy to navigate. Also, it doesn't get so hot you could fry an egg on it unlike my original.

 

Missing favorites aside, the included D&D games, Utopia, Shark Shark, B-17 Bomber, and Sea Battle are worth the cost alone, IMO. Chip Shot Golf, World Championship Baseball, Slam Dunk Basketball, and Super Pro Football are all new to me, and clear superiors to the original incarnations I grew up with. Body Slam Wrestling is great, and so is Thunder Castle. I have messed around in the past with some of these titles with an emulator, but it's so very different when you have the controllers, overlays, and a real tv.

 

Now, the bad. Sound emulation is inaccurate, and I know I have seen this mentioned here already somewhere The standard 'raspberry' sound you get when you hit a wrong key sounds weird, as does the dealers 'voice' in Poker, the victory gong in Cloudy Mountain, and the Baseball yerrrout voice sample. The missile that blows up the Earth in Star Strike is missing, as is the 'engage' sound in Sea Battle. I've also noticed spamming voices with Intellivoice games, and a slight speed up which doesn't line up with gameplay ("replace this first, this second.." doesn't correspond to the flashing bits). Although not a deal breaker for me, I can't help but wonder why a different emulator was used (again, maybe addressed earlier in this thread?). Bliss, Nostalgia, the Android emulator all seem to have better sound emulation.

 

Also, Tower of Doom seems broken. It won't go into melee mode when I touch a monster.

 

My kids have really enjoyed it too, and it's got them off Minecraft for the time being. My little ones want to play Shark Shark and Snafu, and my 7 year old son wants to play Baseball with me constantly (he loves the overlays!).

You just answered my question I had about the sound so now I don't think I will buy one if the sound is not right that is what I did not like about the DOS Emulator on Intellivision Lives, the Buzz sound was too high pitched. Since I have an Intellivision 2 and a Cuttle Cart 3 I have no need for a flash back sine I can play all the games ever made (Except some of the newer Home Brew Games) on the real hardware. I think I'll just wait for the LTO Fladh Cartridge which is like the Cuttle Cart 3 but even Better because it has a USB port on it and you can send games to it directly no need to keep taking out the Memory Card plus it gets around that annoying problem of some games that won't play if you have the ECS attached like all Atari made games and a few other non Mattel games and some demo and prototype programs.

[moonlight_mile]

Any reports of "official" Toy R us launch date purchases?

[Flojomojo]

Any reports of "official" Toy R us launch date purchases?

I got one today at the Toys R Us in Columbia, Maryland. They had four or five out on display, along with the Atari 5 and the new Genesis. I had to ask for the ColecoVision, which was back in the back.

 

Initial impressions are pretty good. The controller feels nice (if a little too much "play" in the disc? it's been a while since I had a real one), the game selection is nice if a bit familiar, the wood grained little console is adorable. The overlays are just OK, the plastic laminate on mine had bubbles in them and they aren't very thick. As others have pointed out, some of the sounds aren't right, most notably the big rejection buzz when you enter something wrong (like when you run out of bullets in Night Stalker) but overall everything is certainly worth forty bucks.

 

It is an excellent toy!

[Bill Loguidice]

Initial impressions are pretty good. The controller feels nice (if a little too much "play" in the disc? it's been a while since I had a real one), the game selection is nice if a bit familiar, the wood grained little console is adorable. The overlays are just OK, the plastic laminate on mine had bubbles in them and they aren't very thick. As others have pointed out, some of the sounds aren't right, most notably the big rejection buzz when you enter something wrong (like when you run out of bullets in Night Stalker) but overall everything is certainly worth forty bucks.

 

 

 

The overlays have a protective plastic laminate over them. Peel that off. For some reason they don't tell you to do that in the instructions.

[Flojomojo]

Thanks Bill, that wasn't obvious to me. That helps a lot. Perhaps I will seek out a retro themed business card case to keep them together.

 

A fun mod would be to put the Coleco board into the Intellivison case or vice versa (there is plenty of room) and wire up a switch to go between the two systems. Frankenstein retro hybrid heaven!

[jointfilms.com]

I got one today at the Toys R Us in Columbia, Maryland. They had four or five out on display, along with the Atari 5 and the new Genesis. I had to ask for the ColecoVision, which was back in the back.

 

Initial impressions are pretty good. The controller feels nice (if a little too much "play" in the disc? it's been a while since I had a real one), the game selection is nice if a bit familiar, the wood grained little console is adorable. The overlays are just OK, the plastic laminate on mine had bubbles in them and they aren't very thick. As others have pointed out, some of the sounds aren't right, most notably the big rejection buzz when you enter something wrong (like when you run out of bullets in Night Stalker) but overall everything is certainly worth forty bucks.

 

It is an excellent toy!

I thought same thing about the disc. Feels like its little too loose or something? Again I think the issue might be like you I haven't played this in 30 years and just need to get used to it again. I remember being pretty good at Space Hawk but today I was having a bitch trying to control the guy.

Edited September 23, 2014 by jointfilms.com

[Flojomojo]

The Coleco stick is a little too short and this disc is a little too high, but neither one is a deal breaker for me.

[PacManPlus]

I finally got all of them at a local TRU today.

 

I *LOVE* the Intellivision one. Slight sound issues aside, it really plays well for me.

 

The Colecovision one has grating audio. Very annoying. Otherwise plays well. Damn those title screens stay on for a long period of time! (Never had a Colecovision back in the day, so I was unaware of this).

 

That Atari FB5, has some *serious* delay issues with the controllers, especially the paddles. I tried Breakout and Circus Atari with the paddles, and I can literally quickly move the paddle in my hand all of the way to the opposite side before it registers on the screen. Unplayable. Keeping my A/V modded 7800 connected (with a harmony cart) instead.

 

Bob

[Flojomojo]

Coleco sounds accurate enough to the originals to me. The delays were part of the original system rom. As kids, we spread tales about why ("the games were programmed in PASCAL and they need to decompress the code before it runs") but in truth, it was just a delay to emphasize the copyright screens. They're much shorter if you use a custom bios with an emulator.

[nesboy43]

Any reports of "official" Toy R us launch date purchases?

Went to mine in Santa Clarita and despite them having Flashback 4's and other electronics set up on a certain wall on Sunday, today that entire wall was now Nintendo, Playstation, and Xbox accessories. I asked the clerk for the Coleco Flashback and he was nice enough to look around for me and he was only able to locate some Flashback 4's but told me that there are "3 new Atari Flashbacks coming out October 1st". So I will check Porter Ranch tomorrow and if they don't have one I will have to wait till then.

[freewheel]

Damn those title screens stay on for a long period of time! (Never had a Colecovision back in the day, so I was unaware of this).

 

 

 

Drives me nuts that they spend so much effort making THAT be emulation-perfect, but sounds/controllers... meh, close enough to the real thing.

 

Would a custom BIOS be that hard to include?

[pimpmaul69]

 

The overlays have a protective plastic laminate over them. Peel that off. For some reason they don't tell you to do that in the instructions.

was it common to have plastic on the old ones? I had several i got that i had to peel off the plastic cause my ocd makes me peel it off of everything it comes on. But i have never bought a new game so i am not sure how common it was Edited September 23, 2014 by pimpmaul69

[+save2600]

was it common to have plastic on the old ones? I had several i got that i had to peel off the plastic cause my ocd makes me peel it off of everything it comes on. But i have never bought a new game so i am not sure how common it was

I'm 99.99% certain that no Intellivision overlays came with a plastic overlay (for the overlay) covering the top BITD. What they did come with however, was a thin paper protector of sorts for the back - which makes more sense. Scratch up the back and you'll see that damage through the screening in front.

[atarifan88]

Does anyone know if the "special" edition of the Intellivision flashback from Sam's Club will have the same release date as the regular ones (Oct 1st)?

[Flojomojo]

onmode-ky wanted some very specific pictures of this unit, so here they are. I haven't looked closely, but I suspect the Atari Flashback 5, ColecoVision Flashback, and the Intellivision Flashback are all built on the same hardware platform. What do you think?

 

Also in that album: Intellivision Flashback controller overlays, before and after removing the protective wrapper. Peel all the stickies off for best results!

[onmode-ky]

Thanks for the album. Now we know that the CV and INTV FBs both use a Titan CPU and a 2-MB SDRAM chip, and also that the CV FB uses a 2-MB NOR flash memory chip while the INTV FB uses a 4-MB NOR flash memory chip (M29W320FT). Are Intellivision games generally larger than ColecoVision games? It could also be that AtGames' Intellivision emulator program is significantly bigger than their ColecoVision one.

 

To me, the use of NOR flash is also interesting, not so much because I know a whole lot about the applications of NAND versus NOR flash (I don't), but just because Jakks Pacific's plug-n-play systems, after moving from ROM to flash memory, use NAND instead (in my experience with their products, at least). Both companies use flash memory as secondary storage for their game software, so it's kind of odd that the types used differ. I guess it could be as simple a decision as "this is what our processors work with"; the microcontrollers used in Jakks' products are specifically described as supporting NAND, so maybe the Titan's design happens to specifically support NOR. Just a layman's guess, though.

 

onmode-ky

Edited September 23, 2014 by onmode-ky

[+DZ-Jay]

And they are here! I just came out of the Toys 'R Us in Crossroads Plaza in Cary, NC.

 

 

My precious!

[pimpmaul69]

I'm 99.99% certain that no Intellivision overlays came with a plastic overlay (for the overlay) covering the top BITD. What they did come with however, was a thin paper protector of sorts for the back - which makes more sense. Scratch up the back and you'll see that damage through the screening in front.

they werent all bubbly and as noticeable. Most people probably dont even realize they are there. I am ocd about plastic covers and I peeled them off of my baseball and football overlays.

[Rev]

And they are here! I just came out of the Toys 'R Us in Crossroads Plaza in Cary, NC.

 

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1411494759.112723.jpg

 

My precious!

Dz!!!! Awesome! I was there at that TRU over the weekend! Those sneaky guys. Ill go to TRU in Raleigh on way home today and check again there.

 

I already have two intv ones, but i want the atari and Cv.

[Flojomojo]

< irrelevant post about Odyssey 2 that somehow found its way to the wrong thread, removed >

 

I sure hope their mobile apps for Intellivision get updated soon!

[+BBWW]

Exclusive game for Dollar Store??? WTF!