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Intellivoice - What am I missing?


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I recently decided to dip into the Intellivision waters (I LOVE my Sears Super Video Arcade) and I figured I HAD to get the Intellivoice, but I'm just not that impressed. The games that I picked up for it are B-17 Bomber, Bomb Squad and Space Spartans. I feel very "meh" about it. I'm sure it was absolutely amazing back in the early 80s, but it's not doing much for me now. By comparison, I think the speech synthesizer for the TI-99/4A computer is fantastic and love many of the games that took advantage of that accessory for the TI, so it's not like I don't appreciate some quality digitized speech from yesteryear. 

 

Are there any good homebrews that take advantage of it? I'm contemplating selling the Intellivoice and the three games to save some shelf space. Am I in the minority on this or what?

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5 hours ago, sixersfan105 said:

(...)

Are there any good homebrews that take advantage of it? I'm contemplating selling the Intellivoice and the three games to save some shelf space. Am I in the minority on this or what?

there are many actually. IIRC, with the exception of Magic Carousel (which wouldn't even be a homebrew, technically) the Intellivoice is used as an additional feature although not essential or mandatory in at least 10 homebrews. If I was in your shoes I would keep room for Missile Domination, for example.

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here is a non-exhaustive list of homebrews to be used with Intellivoice (in random order):

- Hover Bovver

- Same Game & Robots

- Magic Carousel

- Space C*nt

- Missile Domination

- IntyBasic Showcase Vol. 1

- The Secret Government Waffle Project 

- Wizard of Wor

- Steamroller

- Battlestar Galactica Space Battle

- Anthropomorphic Force

Edited by intellivotion
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2 minutes ago, intellivotion said:

here is a non-exhaustive list of homebrews to be used with Intellivoice (in random order):

- Hover Bovver

- Same Game & Robots

- Magic Carousel

- Space C*nt

- Missile Domination

- IntyBasic Showcase Vol. 1

- The Secret Government Waffle Project 

Add Wizard of War

 

 

I was curious about a list of Intellivoice games and a list of ECS enhanced games, too

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12 minutes ago, fdr4prez said:

Add Wizard of War

 

 

I was curious about a list of Intellivoice games and a list of ECS enhanced games, too

here is a non-exhaustive list of homebrews which require the ECS or get additional enhancements thanks to it (in random order):

 

- Space Patrol

- Flintstones' Keyboard Fun

- Super NFL Football

- Number Jumble

- Game Factory

- FUBAR

 

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The big problem is that the 1983 video game crash occurred very soon after the Intellivoice came out - with Mattel dumping the Intellivision division soon thereafter. So only the launch set of games ever came out for Intellivoice. Same with the ECS "Computer" component - only the launch set of games, that was it. (And only one game that used both voice+computer.)

As others have mentioned, there are more recent games that use it to better effect.

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If you consider the launch set to be Space Spartans, B17 Bomber, and Bomb Squad in 1982; then Tron Solar Sailer and World Series Baseball would be released in 1983.  But I remember Bomb Squad coming out a few months after B17.  Of the 29 cartridges Mattel released with or after intellivoice, five had intellivoice speech and four required it for gameplay.  There were also five more intellivoice cartridges in development but not released; including the children's title Magic Carousel that was completed.

 

I think there were a few things working against developing intellivoice cartridges.  Cartridge rom capacity was already small and voice data was taking up most of it.  They did make intellivoice cartridges a little larger and they cost users a few dollars more.  Development was a little more complicated; speech was required to be integral to the gameplay.  They had a team of script writers, contracted voice actors, and another team that digitised, edited, and optimised the voice data.  And by 1983 there was an install base of millions of intellivisions but only a few hundred thousand intellivoices, being on the market only a few months.  Developers might have been reluctant to create a cartridge for a subset of the market.  Hopefully, BSRSteve can give us the inside perspective.

 

Many of those homebrew cartridges include the general instruments set of general speech allophones; giving it an artificial sound exactly like the Odyssey2.  Some are more natural sounding, converting their own recordings; not sure how they do it.

 

One final note is that I'd really like to see the french version of Space Spartans playable.  And others probably feel the same about the German and Italian versions.  Not sure how much work is needed to make it happen.  Some of the data is supposed to on the intellivoice rom.  Can it be moved to cartridge rom easily?

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9 hours ago, intellivotion said:

here is a non-exhaustive list of homebrews to be used with Intellivoice (in random order):

- Hover Bovver

- Same Game & Robots

- Magic Carousel

- Space C*nt

- Missile Domination

- IntyBasic Showcase Vol. 1

- The Secret Government Waffle Project 

- Wizard of Wor

- Steamroller

- Battlestar Galactica Space Battle 


AF has voice.

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