Intellivision Lives! PS2

[kainemaxwell]

Anyone pick this up yet and got any reviews for it?

[Lady Jaye]

Metacritic is your friend...

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/intellivisionlives/

Only 2 reviews so far, but Metacritic will add others as they are published (either on hard copy or online).

[IntvGene]

This is what I was wondering most (from the 1-up review):

"The Intellivision had intricate controllers featuring a numeric keypad. Certain games required the use of the keypad and a special printed overlay to indicate command functions -- something impossible to replicate on PS2 or XBox controllers. To compensate, a single button press brings up an interactive onscreen image of the Intellivision controller, complete with the proper overlay for the current game. It's a nice touch, but not as helpful as it could be -- the controller graphic obscures a large portion of the game action (which doesn't pause), and the overlay text is hard to read even on a large television. This makes even the simple act of choosing menu selections unnecessarily difficult; inputting keypad entries during the actual gameplay is even harder."

I'll pick it up someday, but I am not going to rush out. The original system is still the best way to go anyway. :)

[Captain Wrong]

Ugh, that's the same scheme they used in the PSX version. I was hoping they'd just map the buttons because bringing up a key pad was so cumbersome. Yeah, it was cute and "authentic", but come on. When you have a controller with as many buttons as the modern consoles, it just strikes me as lazy to not map the keypad to some of those buttons.

[RJ]

I HATED the PSX version! I never played Intellivision growing up & if the PSX version emulated the games faithfully, I didnt miss anything.

I had that disc for less than a week before selling it back used.

[Captain Wrong]

The PSX version was far from faithful emulation. It wasn't as bad as the 2600 Activision collection, but the real INTV in action sounded a lot better and seemed to have a cleaner look than the PSX disc.

[omnedon]

TRON Deadly Discs would be utterly impossible that way.

Impossible.

Too bad, as that game is still fun today.

[Captain Wrong]

OK, I picked this up last evening and here's my not-so-quick quick impressions. First off, it's a better pack than the PSX Intelly disc. Of course that isn't saying a hell of a lot.

The emulation is pretty good. For some reason the picture doesn't look as clear as the real thing. I keep wanting to Windex my TV. The sound seems just a hair off too. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but sound is my thing, so I'm pretty sure some of the sounds are just a fraction off. Still, this is nothing to ruin the expirence.

The thing I worried most about was the controll. I HATED the way the PSX game used the overlay poping up and when I saw a few reviews mentioning this collection had that, I almost passed. Well, here's the thing, they seem to have mapped the importaint buttons and if you need to use the overlays for a less action oriented game, the right analog stick and the R1 button fill in if you don't wish to bring up the controller on the screen (which is freekin huge, btw, but at least you can move it around.)

The directional control and fire buttons are another matter. I no longer own a real INTV, so maybe my mind is playing tricks, but I seem to remember that disc controller being pretty responsive. The controll on this collection is very
sluggish. I found myself really getting frustrated in Astrosmash, for instance, because I couldn't shoot some of the smaller rocks and spinners because I couldn't get the damn cannon to nudge that little bit. If I held a direction down long enough to get it to move, it was too much. Again, this could be my mind playing tricks, but it just seems like the real thing has much tighter controlls.

I don't care for the "Hal's Pizza" interface at all. It's cute and all, but it's a bit cumbersome and it seems to me that they were trying to ape the Activision Anthology interface without looking like they were aping it. Dividing the games up by type is ok since Mattel did the "series" concept with the games originally. I just don't like having to "walk around" to switch games.

Speaking of aping Activision Anthology, all those silly and totally seess "enhancement" modes are featured here as well. There's also score based unlocking, though it's less clear as to what you have earned when you accomplish a goal. At least the goals are plainly laid out even if the bonus material is pretty slim.

The biggest problem with this collection is the subject matter at hand. There's over 60 games on this disc, but personally I think only a quarter of them (if that) are really worth playing. Don't get me wrong, I liked my Intellvision when I owned one, but the games I spent the most time with were licensed games (Burgertime and Tron, for instance) or third party
(the excellent Imagic games.) None of those are here due to licensing, I'd imagine.

Since the draw of the system, at least initially, was it's sports line up, there's a lot of sports represented here. While those games were advanced for their time, they just haven't aged well. If you grew up with these, you might get some mileage out of them, but the rest of us probably aren't going to play them more than once.

Pretty much all the non-third party, non-licensed games are here. At least all the biggies (and some not so biggies) seem to be present. I guess the problem with what's left is I just don't feel this was the strongest part of the Intellivision line-up. Don't get me wrong, games like Astrosmash and Snafu are still fun to play, but as a hole I don't feel the Intellivision library has passed the test of time as well as the 2600's. There's fun to be had, but unlike the Activision Anthology you can't pick a game at random and know you're likely to enjoy it.

The long and short of it is this; if you already are an Intellivision fan, you'll probably like this, but this isn't going to win any new converts. With the heavy emphasis on sports titles and so many of the strongest and most popular games missing, this disc will probably be filed under "guess you had to have been there" for most gamers.

[IntvGene]

Thanks for the great review, but...



I no longer own a real INTV..

O_O X_x

Anyway, I never liked that Hal's Pizza interface either. If they wanted to be realistic, they should have made it look like my living room, or at least something suitably retro. The Intellivision was NOT about arcade games, so why the fake arcade design? I don't understand what they were thinking here...

It's a shame that they couldn't get better games for the pack (no AD&D?!). I know that there were some great third-party ones... and the best Mattel games involve two-players or are sports titles. I wonder how Utopia and Sea Battle play... They would be titles worth playing two-player, assuming the controls co-operated. The Intellivision WAS pretty much a two-player console...

[Captain Wrong]

Yeah, that's the other problem. If you don't have a second player who can appreciate the INTV, you're sunk.

Oh, my Intelly had to go when I had some kitty medical bills to pay. A lot of stuff went then. It's alright though. It's only stuff, you know? :)

[josekortez]

Just wanted to let you guys know that EB Games' site says that the Xbox and PS2 versions each have exclusive games that the other one doesn't have.

[davidbrit2]

Question: is anybody else having trouble getting the controller to respond in all 16 different directions? Vectron is seemingly impossible to play. Move the cursor thing all the way down and left, and you can't shoot it there! And you can only hit in 8 different directions in Golf. Weird. And yes, I am using the analog stick. ;-)