Intellivision Exclusives

[classicgamer74]

 

In today's episode I begin my unit on the Intellivision.  I discuss more games that are exclusive to this game system.  What game or games do you feel would would not have worked for any other game system before or since?  What is your favorite INT game?  

[Zendocon]

I had to take a minute to come up with a definition of "worked for" that would allow an answer to the first question.

 

The big factor is the controllers.  The first game that comes to mind is Sea Battle.  Next is the original NFL Football.  Both of these were 2-player-only titles that relied on "feelies" and keypad entry so one player didn't know what the other player was doing.  NFL Football had two playbooks, one for each player, with a list of the key combinations for the various plays.  Sea Battle had a chart of the various ships, and each player built up to 4 fleets at a time of up to 3 ships per fleet.  The element of surprise happens when two opposing fleets engage in combat, and players are often surprised to find themselves outgunned, having mispredicted which ships were involved.

 

Then there are the peripherals.  IntelliVoice games were made to be sophisticated so players had to rely on voice commands.  The most popular example is B-17 Bomber.  But then there's the ECS, developed at the time when consumers wanted a video game console that could be upgraded to a full-blown computer, compounded by the fact the FTC was threatening a monthly fine for further delay, since Mattel had made that promise.  Among the ECS games, probably the most "exclusive" would be Mr. BASIC Meets Bits & Bytes.  It's a collection of 3 minigames that can be tweaked with code using the integrated BASIC interpreter on-board the Computer Adaptor component of the ECS.  Why it's so exclusive is the fact there will probably never be an interpreter like ECS BASIC, which is a good thing (it's painfully slow, even for 1983).  A couple other games come close, like Melody Blaster (probably the first rhythm game, about 15 years prior to KeyboardMania), and World Series Major League Baseball, which had features not seen in video Baseball games until several years later.

[JasonlikesINTV]

Worm Whomper is a decent game.

[BSRSteve]

4 hours ago, Zendocon said:

The big factor is the controllers.  The first game that comes to mind is Sea Battle.  Next is the original NFL Football.  Both of these were 2-player-only titles that relied on "feelies" and keypad entry so one player didn't know what the other player was doing.  NFL Football had two playbooks, one for each player, with a list of the key combinations for the various plays.  Sea Battle had a chart of the various ships, and each player built up to 4 fleets at a time of up to 3 ships per fleet.  The element of surprise happens when two opposing fleets engage in combat, and players are often surprised to find themselves outgunned, having mispredicted which ships were involved.

ColecoVision controllers had the keypad, though not as many side buttons, so it probably could have pulled those off.

 

Most of the INTV games that were not licensed (of which there were only a few) were unique to the Intellivision, though most of those could probably have been done for other platforms.  Though I think Thin Ice works better with the disc than with a joystick.  IIRC, Vetron and one of the Golf games (maybe both) need all 16 disc positions to work completely - not sure any other system had that much granularity.

[JasonlikesINTV]

I have a joke for the wolf:

A one hump camel and a two hump camel have a baby camel with no humps.  What did they name him?

 

 

 

 

 

Hump-free

[classicgamer74]

LOL.  I'll tell him.  Thanks for watching. 

[mr_me]

The Arcadia 2001 and whoever programmed its games ripped off a number of intellivision games; checkout Ocean Battle.

 

The Atari 5200 and Vectrex had analog joysticks and therefore more directions then the Intellivision.

[classicgamer74]

13 minutes ago, mr_me said:

The Arcadia 2001 and whoever programmed its games ripped off a number of intellivision games; checkout Ocean Battle.

 

The Atari 5200 and Vectrex had analog joysticks and therefore more directions then the Intellivision.

You are not kidding!  I have the emulator for that system but never owned one.  Nor did anyone I've ever known.  Actually I didn't even know it existed until recently.  Of course the only way to describe it is a poor man's Intellivision.  Yeah...I went there.  

[Sinjinhawke]

1 hour ago, classicgamer74 said:

You are not kidding!  I have the emulator for that system but never owned one.  Nor did anyone I've ever known.  Actually I didn't even know it existed until recently.  Of course the only way to describe it is a poor man's Intellivision.  Yeah...I went there.  

I remember seeing one (Arcadia 2001) in a video rental store as a kid.  It was beside the Intellivision.  I was quite confused by it as it was never really mentioned in the magazines.  I have the emulator as well.  The games are pretty terrible.  Maybe good for what the hardware can do, I'm not sure.  Would love to own one but the game prices are crazy.  Nope, I'll stick with the systems I grew up with.  Intellivision, Atari 8-bit and TG-16.

[wolfy62]

6 hours ago, Sinjinhawke said:

I remember seeing one (Arcadia 2001) in a video rental store as a kid.  It was beside the Intellivision.  I was quite confused by it as it was never really mentioned in the magazines.  I have the emulator as well.  The games are pretty terrible.  Maybe good for what the hardware can do, I'm not sure.  Would love to own one but the game prices are crazy.  Nope, I'll stick with the systems I grew up with.  Intellivision, Atari 8-bit and TG-16.

I did purchase an Arcadia 2001 recently and a multicart for it.

And,as you said,the games are pretty terrible. 

Back to my Intellivision! 

[Intymike]

3 minutes ago, wolfy62 said:

I did purchase an Arcadia 2001 recently and a multicart for it.

And,as you said,the games are pretty terrible. 

Back to my Intellivision! 

 

A few are quite good. It was the only home system that had a port of Astro Invader before Collectorvision did an Intellivision version of it. 

[wolfy62]

Just now, Intymike said:

 

A few are quite good. It was the only home system that had a port of Astro Invader before Collectorvision did an Intellivision version of it. 

Thank you Mike,I will play that one!

[Intymike]

23 minutes ago, wolfy62 said:

Thank you Mike,I will play that one!

Thats the box of a German Arcadia variant (almost every country had its own version of it).