Collection Review: Intellivision Lives: The History Of Video Gaming

Game: Intellivision Lives: The History Of Video Gaming
Console: Sony Platstation 2
Developer: Realtime Asscociates
Release Date: 20th November 2003

The Intellivision console was released by Mattel Electronics in 1979 and sold 3 million units with a total of 125 games released overall for the system. Just under half of these are included on this collection, which was released for PS2, Xbox, DS and PC, by budget publisher Play It. The controller for the original system featured a 12 button number pad and a circular d-pad. The game gets around this by assigning the number pad to the right analog stick and the control knob to the left analog stick, with particular action buttons assigned to the face buttons of the controller.

The games are divided into categories on the main menu screen which is stylised as a 70s pizza bar. The categories featured are Arcade, Gaming, Combat and Sorcery, Unreleased, Space, Kids, and Sports. I'll be taking a look at the games category by category and making a note of anything particularly good or bad. While the menu could have been a little easier to navigate, it's nice to have the games sorted by genre.

The best games of the Arcade section are Night Stalker (where you play as a man defending himself in a maze against robots, bats and spiders), Buzz Bombers (which is a little like Space Invaders, but with bees), and SNAFU (which is a snake clone, but fun nonetheless). On the whole the controls for these games are responsive, or at least seem to have the desired effect on screen.

The worst of the Arcade section includes Bomb Squad (a strategy game using the Intellivision voice module to shout commands at you) which was more confusing than attempting to defuse a real bomb, Vectron (a shooter where you're some sort of base, instead of something that actually moves) whose controls made zero sense, and Thin Ice (a game where you play as a penguin who attempts to drown other penguins by skating holes around them in the ice) which was fiddly and difficult to play.

The "Gaming" section of the collection highlights some of the more unnecessary games released for the Intellivision. With the exception of Horseracing (which is confusing and slowly paced), all 6 other games could be played better in real life. Backgammon, Checkers, and Reversi had awkward control schemes and would have been much easier to set up and play on a board, and Poker and Blackjack are fairly easy to play with a set of cards. While many people don't own a Roulette wheel, the Roulette game featured is hardly exciting anyway.

With some of these games being two players only, another problem with the collection is highlighted. Due to the odd nature of the Intellivision controller, players can press the select button on the PS2 controller to bring up a visual representation of the Intellivison controller on-screen. In some games this is necessary to select various options. With only one player's controller on-screen it's easy enough to move it around and out of the way of the action, but with two it becomes cluttered and messy.

The best of the Combat and Sorcery category of games are those which are more fantasy based; Thunder Castle (pictured above) features various levels where players must collect items to defeat enemies around a maze in a pseudo Pac-man style. Tower of Doom is possibly the most complex Intellivison game I've seen so far, with an adventure through dungeons where you can encounter and fight creatures, as well as find and use items to escape. Finally there's Utopia which is rather difficult to understand at first, but is a fairly detailed attempt at a SimCity type game, way before SimCity was even released. 

Other than these 3 games however, the Combat and sorcery section is somewhat of a letdown with the rest of the games divided between hard to play simulation type games )such as B-17 Bomber, Sea Battle and Sub Hunt) and Atari 2600 clone games (such as Armor Battle, Battle Tanks and Biplanes). So far it's this section that has had the best display of complex and interesting games. 

Surprisingly the space themed games only number 6, in an era where the genre was incredibly popular. Astrosmash is perhaps one of the best known games for the system. Gameplay consists of shooting down Asteroids which are falling towards Earth. For every one that is destroyed, points are gained and for each one that gets through, points are lost. A life is lost when the player is hit by a piece of asteroid, or in other special circumstances. Space Armada is also a familiar game, although this is because it's essentially Space Invaders, though there are fewer enemies who also move more slowly than in the original game.

Both Space Battle and Space Spartans feature more of a strategic style of gameplay with multiple screens and options for attack. I found both of them difficult to understand entirely, and didn't think they were particularly worthy of making this compilation. Lastly Space Hawk and Star Strike are both more slowly paced space shooters which have little character and less to enjoy gameplay wise than Astrosmash or Space Armada.

The kids games that were made for the Intellivision were mostly educational, so as you'd expect Math Master and Factor Fun are largely based around maths. There's a version of scrabble with fairly difficult controls misleadingly named "Crosswords", and a game called Word Rockets which features some of the worst sound effects I've ever heard in a game. I'm not entirely sure of the point of including these on the collection as either there was nothing better (which proves the game lineup was pretty dire), or the developers thought that they're enjoyable games (they're not).

Two games do stand out in the kids section though; Frog Bog is a port of the Atari 2600 game Frogs and Flies which plays pretty nicely and makes for a short but enjoyable experience. Sharp Shot is the other standout game as it features 4 different minigames based on timing; Football Pass, Space Gunner, Submarine, and Maze Shoot. In an era where all of these could easily have been released as individual games without much of a problem, it's good to see that not everyone was doing just the minimum amount of work necessary to make a game.

The sports section purports to have 22 different games over 14 sports, however some sports have 2 games which are basically the same, save for a few improvements. It seems as if the original games have been left on the collection to bolster the game count, because they add nothing when there's an improved version to play, just below them. In general most, if not all of the sports games are poor representations of what they're supposed to be, and although it was early on in video game history they're just not much fun to play.

The last section of games concerns unreleased titles, half of which are locked, with no explanation of how to unlock them, and the other half are the Demo Cartridge ) for shops displaying the Intellivision), Magic Carousel (a game for preschoolers) and Hyponotic Lights (a fairly unexciting puzzle game).

Graphically the game's menu looks decent and functions well, and the graphics of the Intellivision games look as good as they're ever going to. The sounds from the games are also as true to the console as they can be. There's an interesting choice of introductory song on the menu screen however (check it out with the link); I don't know who decided to rhyme "incision" with "Intellivision", but it wasn't the greatest idea. There's some bonus content in the form of interviews with programmers for the Intellivision, and box art can be viewed from the menu of each game, but that's about it.

Overall I'm not entirely convinced that this collection needs to exist; while the Intellivision was definitely a popular console in its day, there's only about 5 games that are actually worth playing in the whole collection. With the addition of control difficulties, multiple versions of the same sports games being included, and a generally mediocre feel, I'd recommend avoiding this collection and getting a real Intellivision if you're that keen on playing the games.

Rating: 43/100
Grade: E