Mattel Intellivision Appreciation Thread

[Deleted member 17210]

After the success of their handheld sports games in the late '70s, toy giant Mattel was preparing the release their first game console. The Intellivision was test marketed in California in 1979, and given a full North American release in 1980. After that, it saw release in Europe, South America, Japan, and Oceania. From what I gather, the InTV ended up in second place in the first major console war behind Atari but ahead of the Odyssey2/Videopac and Bally Professional Arcade/Astrocade.

• In terms of hardware, it can claim a few firsts: technically it was the first console to have a 16-bit processor.

As far as I can tell, it introduced the directional pad (Nintendo's cross-shaped d-pad originated on Game & Watch and was later) and the numeric keypad/overlay type controller. It definitely isn't the most comfortable controller but at the time I didn't mind as much.

It was the first console to have downloadable games and a subscription service. Its PlayCable service started in 1981. Ralph Baer had thought of the idea many years earlier for the original Odyssey but the cable companies weren't interested at the time.

• On the marketing front, it began the trend of bashing the competition in ads, and it had celebrity endorsements. Commercials with George Plimpton made comparisons with similar games on the Atari VCS.

• It introduced officially licensed sports video games in 1980. Major League Baseball came first (it also became the best selling game on the system). It was followed by NHL, NFL, NASL, PGA and NBA games.

• Also, World Series Major League Baseball had a save function in 1983, if you had the Entertainment Computer System add on. For consoles, this predates the Famicom Disk System and the Epoch Super Cassette Vision's battery backup.
  
  
• It's common practice today for movie licensed games to be in development at the same time as the movies themselves. I'm pretty sure 1982's TRON Deadly Discs was the first game released to do this. This also happens to be one of my favourite games of all time so I'm curious what happened to its main designer, Steve Sents. Anyone know?

• Given the advantage over the 2600 of having a keypad for a standard controller, the Intellivision did a good job of having more than just fast-paced arcade style games with one or two play buttons. It also had a slower processor than the 2600 so that also steered it towards complex games over speedy games.

The strategy/simulation game Utopia in 1981 was an ancestor to games like Sim City.

It had the first 3d dungeon crawler console RPG: Tom Loughry's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: The Treasure of Tarmin in 1983. This was amazing at the time and still holds up well for a quick RPG fix.

For turn-based RPGs on console, it does seem to have been beaten to the market by Dragonstomper (another impressive game) on Supercharger but that didn't have the same visual wow factor.

The Famicom/NES often hogs all the credit for moving home gaming past just arcade games and offering more "home experiences" but even two years after launch day in Japan it was lacking simulation, action-adventure, and roleplaying games. The Intellivision had these genres (although certainly not to the extent personal computers did) so it deserves to share some credit, especially in the console sphere.

• The Intellivision had a relatively large number of women development staff (usually on graphics but some on design). There isn't enough information on every developer to say for sure but the percentage seems higher to me than any other first-party from the '80s. Connie Goldman, Julie Hoshizaki, Monique Lujan-Bakerink, Ji Wen Tsao, Peggi Decarli, Minchau Tran, Karen Nugent, Donna Fisher were all involved in making InTV games for Mattel.

Some other cool games:

Demon Attack
That epic boss fight!

BurgerTime

Beauty and the Beast
Simpler than Donkey Kong but it's a much faster paced game.

Lock 'n Chase
Probably the most liked maze chase game on the system.

Tower of Doom

Duncan's Thin Ice
Similar to games like Qix.

Frogger

Q*bert

Loco-Motion

AD&D: Cloudy Mountain

Space Hawk

Snafu
A quality game in the Blockade/Surround genre that inspired TRON light cycles.

Night Stalker

Please correct me if anything's incorrect. And check out http://www.intellivisionlives.com/ for more info.

 

[Mezoly]

Loved playing Beauty and the Beast and BurgerTime, this was one of my most memorable consoles from childhood. I remember my hands ached because of that d-pad during playing Beauty and the beast.

 

[Aaron D.]

Man, I loved Intellivision.

My standout memory would be AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin. A legitimate first-person RPG dungeon crawler...released in 1983!

Holy crap that game blew my goddamn mind back at launch.

 

[Mr. Bad Example]

The strategy/simulation game Utopia in 1981 was an ancestor to games like Sim City.

Click to shrink...

My brother and I played the hell out of Utopia back in the day. We used to screw each other over by planting rebels in each other's territories and sinking each other's fishing boats.

We had an Intellivision and an Atari 2600. The Intellivision had more processing power and more functions on the controllers, but man, I loved the feel of the Atari joystick.

 

[Aaron D.]

Yeah, the Intellivision controller is notoriously bad. Definite contender for worst of all time.

The directional disc would break your thumb 'cause it was so awkwardly positioned and very inaccurate to boot. The 4 tiny "Chicklet" buttons on either side of the controller were stiff as f and would dig into your fingers, leaving impressions on you skin. The keypad was completely underutilized and largely pointless. The telephone cord controller connections were like 6 inches long.

Woof.

Still one of my all-time fave consoles either way though!

 

[I am Christina Aguilera]

I played through chunks of the INTV library for the first time with the GameCube Intellivision Lives compilation, and wound up really enjoying a bunch of them! As someone who more or less was initiated into video games with the NES, I feel that right around the Intellivision/Colecovision mark are about the earliest console games that I still find playable today. 2600 games were just a bit too clunky, a bit too rudimentary to age well versus its contemporary arcade equivalents. Intellivision graphics are still pretty chunky, but the gameplay and music (music!) are just complex enough to be appealing today.

What INTV games happened to appeal to me most playing for the first time around 2010:
-Thunder Castle
-Thin Ice
-Tower of Doom
-Astrosmash

 

[Hobbun]

Would play Baseball for house with my cousins. Loved that game.

 

[Virtua King]

The Intellivision was my first system ever. My parents had gotten it before I was born, but these were the games that I solely played until I got my Genesis. Armor Battle, Auto-Racing, Astrosmash, Major League Baseball, Snafu, Space Armada, Space Hawk, and so on, I still love even now.

 

[EternalWinter]

The Intellivision was my first system ever.

Click to shrink...

Same. Believe it or not, I still have mine with a handful of games. I had some great stuff like Pitfall, Baseball, Space Armada, Frogger, Night Stalker, and Empire Strikes Back. My favorite was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin. It's been mentioned a few times here, but that was the most immersive and exciting game for my young mind.

 

[Allforce]

My Aunt and Uncle had one and I used to stay over at their place all the time as a kid. They were ridiculously loaded in the early 80s and he had it hooked up to one of these types of front-projection TVs (basically the only "big screen TV" at the time) :

Click to shrink...

He had the first D&D game and I used to be so scared of it when he'd find the dragon. It looked like a green duck but the noises it made were horrible and I'd run out of the room.

Basically stoked my love of games though for all time.

 

[Deleted member 11926]

I wasn't alive back then but were there "console warz" between this and the colecovision (and the vcs 2600)? With all this wood on the consoles, I can imagine getting hit by those is painful. I got hit as a child with the OG Xbox "Duke" controller. That shit hurt a lot.

 

[MarioLinkSamus]

My first foray into video games. I'll never forget it.

I don't see a mention of Masters of the Universe (He-Man). Probably the first good video game based on a TV/movie series. Incredible sound design for its time.

​

 

[Aaron D.]

I wasn't alive back then but were there "console warz" between this and the colecovision (and the vcs 2600)? With all this wood on the consoles, I can imagine getting hit by those is painful. I got hit as a child with the OG Xbox "Duke" controller. That shit hurt a lot.

Click to shrink...

Sure was.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Can't tell you how many hours I put into Lock N Chase. Probably hundreds. It was awesome.

 

[Virtua King]

Same. Believe it or not, I still have mine with a handful of games. I had some great stuff like Pitfall, Baseball, Space Armada, Frogger, Night Stalker, and Empire Strikes Back. My favorite was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin. It's been mentioned a few times here, but that was the most immersive and exciting game for my young mind.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I have mine as well. Even though it's getting close to 40 years old, it's still going strong, lol.

Night Stalker is another one I used to play, and I wish I had known that the Empire Strikes Back was for it, because I would have played it all the time.

 

[Transistor]

Astrosmash is legit one of my favorite games of all time

 

[Marshall]

My best friend had one. The standout for me was Triple Action.

It had three mini games...only two of which we played. Biplanes was a blast, and so was Tanks. Tanks gameplay was "emulated" by Nintendo on the Wii decades later. Such a fun game.

 

[Deleted member 11926]

Sure was.

Click to shrink...

Man, Atari Casino was lacking the dealer. Fucking dealbreaker, man. I'm a bit sad now that the crash took Mattel's electronics division and Coleco down.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

I wasn't alive back then but were there "console warz" between this and the colecovision (and the vcs 2600)? With all this wood on the consoles, I can imagine getting hit by those is painful. I got hit as a child with the OG Xbox "Duke" controller. That shit hurt a lot.

Click to shrink...

The InTV and 2600 were wood-styled but not actual wood. Some systems like the Telstar used real wood for the casing it was stored in, though.

 

[Mr. Bad Example]

Yeah, it was the 70s/early 80s. Pretty much anything electronic was wood-grained plastic back then. Only the higher-end stuff like console TVs was actual wood.

 

[Mollymauk]

The controller overlays were fantastic.

http://www.arcadepunks.com/intellivision-controller-overlays/

 

[BringBackSonics]

Omg. This was my console until the NES. I remember being amazed by the voice pack and B17 bomber.

I loved Utopia, dread naught son many unngames

 

[just_myles]

This was my first console hahaha. I had a poker game and another one where you parachuting... I think. It's so long ago.

 

[138]

Not to brag, but MY games talked because I had the IntelliVoice module. All two games.

Man, this thread brings me back. I loved Night Stalker and BurgerTime. And the overly complex NFL game with actual routes for your team to run.

 

[BringBackSonics]

This was one of my favourite games, loved dreadnaught factor!

B-17 bomber with the voice pack!

 

[anthraxus]

I wasn't alive back then but were there "console warz" between this and the colecovision (and the vcs 2600)?

Click to shrink...

Ruthless stuff
They tore em' up on sports.

 

[Nocchi]

We had gotten a second hand one of these when I was a kid in either late 80s or early 90s, along with a stack of games from a rummage cheap...I remember playing that thing a bunch. Of course we didn't have any of the overlays, or manuals, so playing these games was a pain in the ass because we never knew what buttons did what.

Even though I never got far in it, and was never very good at it, the one game I remember the most fondly is Dracula. Just loved the idea that you played as the guy trying to suck other people's blood lol

I remember that weird Beauty and the Beast game in the OP too, lol

 

[JSR_Cube]

Thunder Castle was great. It still holds up today.

AD&D Cloudy Mountain was also so cool. I loved how you had to listen to the sounds to figure out how many you arrows you had left in your quiver.

 

[Phediuk]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was a pretty mindblowing game for that era.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

My cousin was the only person I knew with an Intellivision.
That D&D game is impressive as fuck for that time.

And DAMN do I miss that old box art!

 

[xir]

Loco-Motion

Click to shrink...

OP got it right, what a weird cool game. Anyone ever play Illusions? like mc escher?

 

[xylo]

Had one growing up. Friends and I would play the horrible baseball game and had a rule were we could call a "pause" when one of the keypad buttons would get stuck down and you would have to massage it back out. :)

Man I don't miss that controller but some of the games were nice time sinks.

 

[Clear]

I still have my original intellivision and play it often. AD&D: Cloudy Mountain is a personal favorite and playing frog bog with my brother.

Damnit now I got B-17 baaaullmer in my head.

 

[THEVOID]

yoooouuur ouuut!

Best baseball game on the planet!

 

[Doc Holliday]

I remember playing a skiing game on it when I was a kid and thinking the controls were awful.

Gemini console for life yo!

 

[Vickton Farway]

Man, Atari Casino was lacking the dealer. Fucking dealbreaker, man. I'm a bit sad now that the crash took Mattel's electronics division and Coleco down.

Click to shrink...

Crash didn't take down coleco they lived.

Mattel crashed but they still spun off a company to keep the brand alive and had the Intellivision 3 on the shelf for a few years.

Also no mention of Mouse Trap?

 

[Hawk269]

Great thread OP. I have so many fond memories of this system:

For starters my dad bought me and my brother the 2600 for Christmas. Our neighbors, which was 3 boys were given an Intellivision on Xmas Eve morning. We spent the entire day at the neighbors playing it, then the next day the entire day playing the 2600. While I loved the 2600, the Intellivision was impressive. We had another friend down the street that had a brother that worked for Mattel. He was game junkie and played Astrosmash 5 days straight. We would go over and play a bit of since he so many lives available. But the great thing is that we were able to play some of the games a few months before they would come out.

Two years later my other 2 siblings got the Intellivision 2 which was he new remake that was smaller.

I currently still own the original Intellivision and routinely still look for games. I have about 20 games in Box and about another 20 games with just the cartridge. Going to find someone to do a A/V mod since it only outputs RF. Love this system.

 

[Adam Tyner]

My Aunt and Uncle had one and I used to stay over at their place all the time as a kid. They were ridiculously loaded in the early 80s and he had it hooked up to one of these types of front-projection TVs (basically the only "big screen TV" at the time)

Click to shrink...

Wow! We had that exact same TV growing up. I used to love flipping it open and staring straight into the red, green, and blue elements. Similarly, it actually belonged to relatives but eventually wound up in our living room a few years later.

The Intellivision was my first console too, and I was still playing it in all its wood-paneled glory up until we got an NES in Christmas '88.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

I remember playing a skiing game on it when I was a kid and thinking the controls were awful.

Gemini console for life yo!

Click to shrink...

I loved playing the Gemini at a friend's house. I didn't even realize it was a 2600 clone at the time.

 

[tiesto]

Played the Intellivision for the first time at a friend's house recently, it's definitely a step up from the 2600, but pales in comparison to the Colecovision, which is one of the only pre-NES consoles I still find very playable :/ Am interested in trying the D&D games though, those look pretty advanced for the platform.

Snafu is a cool multiplayer Snake game with a catchy game over riff:

 

[Deleted member 27469]

BurgerTime

Lock 'n Chase

Click to shrink...

I spent a lot of time with BurgerTime and Lock 'n Chase as a kid. So much fun. This was my first system, and the NES literally blew my mind after Intellivision graphics.


Edit:

Click to shrink...

Frog Bog too. Haha. Jump back and forth and back and forth. I guess I was easily entertained.

 

[baron_calamity]

Crash didn't take down coleco they lived.

Click to shrink...

Correct, the crash didn't sink Coleco. It didn't even really hurt it that much. Most of their back inventory of games was bought by a firm called Telegames. In 1986 Coleco CEO Arnold Greenberg said that the entire Colecovision product line was slightly profitable to Coleco, but the Adam cost them their reputation as a electronics maker and that damaged them far more than any monetary costs. What killed them was buying board game maker Selchow and Righter. While Coleco thought they were just getting the rights to popular board games and a season of back inventory, they ended up with multiple warehouses across the country with years of damaged unsellable inventory. They also lost a seasonal bid to supply Toys R Us with all its back yard pools. they couldn't turn their investment around in time and crashed.

 

[Vickton Farway]

Correct, the crash didn't sink Coleco. It didn't even really hurt it that much. Most of their back inventory of games was bought by a firm called Telegames. In 1986 Coleco CEO Arnold Greenberg said that the entire Colecovision product line was slightly profitable to Coleco, but the Adam cost them their reputation as a electronics maker and that damaged them far more than any monetary costs. What killed them was buying board game maker Selchow and Righter. While Coleco thought they were just getting the rights to popular board games and a season of back inventory, they ended up with multiple warehouses across the country with years of damaged unsellable inventory. They also lost a seasonal bid to supply Toys R Us with all its back yard pools. they couldn't turn their investment around in time and crashed.

Click to shrink...

Also CPK was a fad they overly relied on

 

[Deleted member 17210]

Intellivision homebrew has been pretty crazy in recent years. For 1979 console hardware, it has been pushed farther than I thought possible.

 

[Manmademan]

Intellivision homebrew has been pretty crazy in recent years. For 1979 console hardware, it has been pushed farther than I thought possible.

Click to shrink...

what the shit

HOW

 

[hendersonhank]

Swords & Serpents -- the first co-op dungeon crawler? One player is the knight, one is the wizard. Fireball scrolls, "fleet feet" spell....great game.

Also, Atlantis, the best Missile Command ripoff of all time:

And one my all-time favorite competitive games, Sea Battle:

 

[Deleted member 51848]

My first home console. Sub hunt, tennis, space battle, burger time, empire strikes back and that game where you were basically inside a human body were my standout games along with Tron Deadly Discs. That game was AMAZING.

 

[Deleted member 51848]

Also how could I forget sea battle (or was it sub hunt?) I'm confused now!

 

[Deleted member 17210]

Swords & Serpents -- the first co-op dungeon crawler?

Click to shrink...

There were older ones on computers, and for consoles, there was Quest for the Rings on Odyssey2. It's still neat, though.

 

[Black Chamber]

Hover Force was one of my favorites:

As was Bump 'N' Jump:

The games had really good sound for the time!