Intellivision Suggestions

[Captain_N77]

I finally made the plunge to get an Intellivision this week and will go pick it up sometime next week when I'm off work.

That being said, what are some of the best games to pick up for the Intellivision? So far I have the 3 Tron games and I also have the Intellivoice. I've never played an Intellivision before, though I do own Intellivision Lives for the GameCube, but could not figure out how to really play the games on that darn thing.

I already plan on getting BurgerTime, Q bert, Frogger, Pitfall, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, and River Raid(all games that I already own on other systems), but what are some of the other games I should look into for the ol' Intellivision? Thanks in advance!

[PreZZ]

My favorite game for intellivision is AD&D Treasures of Tarmin. This game was so ahead of its time, its a first person random dungeon rpg game. It seems complicated at first it uses lots of buttons, but you ll get the hang of it in an hour. Read a faq or instructions and youll be fine. I still play it occasionally, 30 years later! Shark shark, nfl football and Utopia (close second in my best list, but you must find another player!)were amazing two player games. Intellivision also got the best version of beamrider (on par with c64), the best space shooter from the first generation. If you like pac-man, Lock N Chase is very similar but also different, you should definitely try it. Beauty and the beast was fun too. Diner was a very good sequel to burger time. Intellivision was the best system you could get in the early 80s, so much better than the 2600, which I always hated. My old man gets the intellivision out of the closet when I visit him, and he still beats the crap out of me at beamrider! I die around level 20, he reaches 99 and plays for hours, in the 80s he played the same game for a 3 days non stop and had the world record before my mom pulled the plug! He still has pictures he took for his high scores!

[retroguy]

Space Battle is a good one. Like AD&D, it seems complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's tons of fun. And I know it's kind of obvious, but you should definitely pick up Astrosmash.

[Atarileaf]

I don't have my Intellivision anymore but some games that I did enjoy are Atlantis which is far superior to the 2600 version, bump n jump, and Worm Whomper. Great game, rarer, but great.

[retroguy]

Almost forgot: If you're going to shop for Intellivision games, I recommend http://www.tradengames.com and http://www.atari2600.com. Both places usually have very reasonable prices, so if you're a budget gamer like me, it's a gold mine.

[sloan]

Shark! Shark!
Thin Ice
Beauty and the Beast
Safe Cracker
Mission X
D2K Arcade
Space Patrol
Stonix
Christmas Carol
Worm Whomper
Spina the Bee
Truckin
Burgertime
Diner
Ice Trek

[cd\tony2]

Dungeons and Dragons Cloudy Mountain. Best Game. Those dragons still scare the crap out of me.
Also...
Bowling, Snafu, and Mouse Trap. Burgertime i like better on the nes. controls are easier.

[cholkavich]

A great 2 player game is Snafu and I enjoy Lock'n Chase

[zachhargis]

Out of all the pre-NES systems, the Intellivision is my absolute favorite. Here are some recommendations in no particular order:

Loco-Motion
Burgertime
Night stalker
Utopia
Star Strike
Motocross
Masters of the Universe
Turbo
Carnival
Venture
Mouse Trap
Demon Attack
Dracula
Beauty and the Beast
Sewer Sam
Atlantis
Dragonfire
Stampede
Pitfall
Q-bert

[revolutionika]

Dont forget Popeye, Beauty and the Beast!

Also, there are some nice homebrews available right now.

Check here in the homebrew section. Enjoy!

http//:www.intellivisionrevolution.com

[Leo_A]

Buzz Bombers is fun and has yet to be mentioned.

My advice is to largely stick with the arcade action on the platform (Much of which has already been mentioned). But one exception to that which I always loved was B-17 Bomber. And you're all set with the Intellivoice needed for it.

Most of the lineup that Intellivision Productions has rereleased in recent years are the games I generally avoid bothering with. Mattel didn't do arcade style gameplay nearly as often as they should've and much of it hasn't aged well, requires two player's, and has a learning curve the classic gamer often isn't accustomed to with games of the era.

If you want to take another crack at Intellivision Lives (If for nothing else than to check out some of these suggestions that are included), just try to avoid the games that utilize it during gameplay. The more arcade oriented fare like Thin Ice are still fun to play on it. Why Intellivision Productions didn't remap keypad buttons to buttons on the controller, I don't know. I've never taken a statistical look at things but I suspect that even a GameCube controller has adequate buttons to cover every possible function in well over 90% of the Intellivision library.

Nothing ruins an Intellivision game faster than a virtual keypad...

[retroguy]

If it helps, the DS version of Intellivision Lives is better than any of the console versions because it actually emulates the keypad on the touch screen. Very cool!

[retroman]

B17 Bomber for the Intelevoice is awsome..check it out.

[Leo_A]

If it helps, the DS version of Intellivision Lives is better than any of the console versions because it actually emulates the keypad on the touch screen. Very cool!

Sadly it has a good number of bugs. I never played the GameCube or Xbox game long enough to find many since that virtual keypad is so awful. But I'm finding issues almost everytime I fire up the DS release even after all of this time. It's still a great collection though. Just don't try to play B-17 Bomber on it since the bugged Intellivoice emulation will drive you nuts. I can't believe I managed to get two or three play throughs of it without encountering the issue (And even disagreed here that it was running fine) since I can't manage even a single game now in it without the voice work just looping in the background most of the time.

The main problem is that most of the content is unlikely to be of much interest to someone (particularly a newcomer). A healthy chunk of Mattel's non licensed 1st party lineup was 2 player only and a good bit of what's left is rather slow paced and overcomplicated (Motocross for instance runs very slow and the steering is far from intuitive). Even something like a board game tended to be made overly complicated by Mattel. Either Checkers or Reversi/Othello (I forget which) has two buttons where just one would've sufficed for selecting and placing your pieces and it quickly got annoying where as such games on the competition are still fun for me to this day (Checkers by Activision and Othello by Atari are still in my 2600 pretty regularly after all of these years).

The gems that I probably have played the most on Intellivision Lives for the DS are Shark! Shark!, Snafu, Thin Ice, Night Stalker, and Buzz Bombers. They're fun arcade action (Although Night Stalkers is a bit slow paced) without the need to use the keypad and that's the category where the Intellivision has aged the best in.

I don't think there's a huge demand for the sports lineup these days and that represents the bulk of the collection. And the space games don't do much for me these days like Astrosmash that I can keep playing until I voluntarily quit. I do enjoy a bit of the skiing games though. Those two (One from Mattel and one from INTV) and Skiing from Activision on the Atari 2600 were always a good time and easy to get into and are my favorite skiing games.

Most of the good action on the Intellivision today are with the licensed games, 3rd party releases, and homebrews (Although I'm sure the people that played these sports games 30 years ago would greatly disagree). I'd say only about 10 of the games included on this DS collection ever get played on my real console and several of those are multiplayer only and hardly ever have the opportunity to be played (Triple Action's biplanes mode and Utopia come to mind since it's no fun alone).

I really need to try to get into the D&D games since I've virtually ignored them all of these years. Sadly though I hear one of them has a major emulation bug on this DS collection (I think your inventory isn't shown).

[chrisbid]

nobody mentioned happy trails yet, fantastic clone of locomotion.. which is also on the system and pretty good, but not as good as happy trails

[Captain_N77]

Hey, thanks for all the suggestions. I'm definitely going to be coming back to this thread as I build up the collection over time. One thing that surprised me was seeing Beauty and the Beast mentioned so many times. I guess I wrongly assumed it would be a junk game, but I'll definitely give it a whirl. Thanks again everyone, and I'm always open to more suggestions.

[Guyra]

Ah, I wish I had an Intellivision. Would've loved trying out a bunch of these games!

I guess I'll just get me that Intellivision Lives! release for the PS2, and be content with that for the time being. :P

[retroguy]

Ah, yes. I have the PS2 version. In fact it was one of the first games I got when I got my PS2 and I liked it so much it convinced me to get a real system. It's not hard to find a good deal on a system that comes with a few games, so if you want one, go for it.

[BydoEmpire]

My favorite game for intellivision is AD&D Treasures of Tarmin. This game was so ahead of its time, its a first person random dungeon rpg game.Couldn't agree more, one of the all time greats! It was amazing back it the day, and still holds up.

Treasure of Tarmin is great, but AD&D Cloudy Mountain is also a must-have. If you can find a copy, Thunder Castle is an awesome fantasy-themed maze game. I really love that one.

Imagic's Intellivision games were really good - Dracula, Demon Attack and Beauty and the Beast being my three favorites. Atlantis is great, too, I love being able to fly the saucer.

Night Stalker is one of my favorite Inty games of all time, definitely a must-have.
Space Hawk is solid, and I've been playing that a lot lately.
I really enjoy Sharp Shot - it's not the deepest game, but it's a lot of simple shooting gallery fun.
Masters of the Universe: The Power of He Man is a great game, too.

I have most of the voice games, but Space Spartans is the only one I still play. I don't like it as much as Star Raiders, but it's still pretty good.

[goldenband]

The Intellivision actually has an unusually good library, with relatively few outright duds. Most of the first-party titles from Mattel and INTV are worthwhile, and just about everything from Imagic, Atarisoft, and Activision was good too (or at least worth checking out/owning). The Parker Bros. and Coleco titles were weaker, and the Interphase titles are...an acquired taste.

That said, I think that the console's strength isn't really arcade-style titles, but slightly more cerebral games with some kind of adventure or strategic element. AD&D: Cloudy Mountain and Tower of Doom are two favorites, both way ahead of their time and highly addictive. Space Battle is a very impressive early title (be sure to get the harder version). Microsurgeon is one of several Imagic titles with unusual and engaging gameplay -- they were easily the most creative third-party publisher for the system. King of the Mountain is a nifty unreleased game that was recently polished/bugfixed and distributed.

Another issue is whether you have anyone to play with. Some of the console's best games are two-player only, or at least best played with two (Utopia, Frog Bog). If you like sports games and have someone to play with, it probably has the best pre-NES sports library of any console (the later Super Pro games offer one-player options, but are comparatively expensive).

Some of the arcade-style games are quite good, BTW, like Bump 'N' Jump and Thin Ice. But some suffer from the controller's limitations or have other control issues (Demon Attack), others are weak efforts (Mission X), and more than a few are just overrated IMHO. And some are better experienced on other systems -- I'd much rather play Astroblast or Carnival on the Atari, though the console's version of Pitfall is great.

The homebrews, however, are almost uniformly excellent; Space Patrol, D2K Arcade, Stonix, Christmas Carol...all well worth getting.

BTW if you need any commons, feel free to let me know -- I have a bunch of CIB extras I'd love to find a home for. :)

[Guyra]

Ah, yes. I have the PS2 version. In fact it was one of the first games I got when I got my PS2 and I liked it so much it convinced me to get a real system. It's not hard to find a good deal on a system that comes with a few games, so if you want one, go for it.

Cool! The bad thing is that I live in Norway, and over here retro stuff is either overpriced or impossible to get. And if I want to import it, I'll have to pay a lot for shipping, plus customs(which is roughly $20 + 25% of whatever I bought the Intellivision for). Ah, I'll get one someday, somehow. :)