Intellivision Lives!
Remember the NES? Yeah, some of us were playing games before then, and some of us played stuff like this.
Published: December 8, 2003
They say fads like to come back every 20 or so years, which accounts for some of the resurgence of 70's themes in the 90's and must go a long ways towards explaining why all the companies around back in the early 80's are kicking out nostalgic bundles these days. Activision gave us their Anthology, Midway has their Arcade Treasures, and now Intellivision, once contender to the pre-NES home console crown (an adornment which never really left the heads of Atari during the 2600 days), gives us Intellivision Lives!
A collection of some 60+ games from the early 80's, plus a few unreleased titles, a slew of historical data on the games and some commercials and old video footage, Intellivision Lives! stands, if nothing else, as a comprehensive retelling of the quick rise and fall of an American video games manufacturer. Intellivision Productions, formed by former members of the original design teams, and developer Realtime Associates have done about as good a job as you can do making the games playable on the PS2, and added in touches of nostalgia along the way.
The games themselves are scattered around Hal's Pizza, the 3D front end Reatime created to serve up the different games. By spinning around 360°, you can take in the different arcade cabinets, divided into categories like Arcade, Sports and Space, goof around with the options (hidden behind the façade of a jukebox), or take a peek at the history of Intellivision, and the programmers who worked there. Hidden in almost every one of the cabinets are games that have certain goals (i.e. Finish the game with 20,000 points), which in turn unlock extras like commercials and archival footage. Good stuff.
Aside from the 3D front end and the basic effects that can be applied to the emulated games (none of which are all that fascinating), there's little to the Lives! experience other than the games themselves, and after 20 or so years, they fare better than one would expect, but it's doubtful that there's much here beyond the nostalgic attraction for us older gamers, not so much because the games as a whole are bad, but merely because there are so few really good ones that stand the test of time. For every Shark! Shark!, which is just plain timeless, there are plenty of Space Invaders or Breakout clones that just don't quite work as well.
In fact, I'd forgotten how common it was for games to be either ported or just plain ripped off from one medium to the other. It's a mind boggling concept to think that arcade machines once towered over home consoles, but it's a fact, and while the Intellivision was certainly more apt to handle straight conversions (anyone remember the 2600 Pac-Man debacle?), it's still a little odd in this day and age to see some pretty blatant clones.
Aside from the 3D front end, which does a decent job of presenting things, and the cycled Intellivision-themed tunes streaming from the jukebox that play while picking out your games (they slowly fade out as you play the game, a nice touch), there's little here besides the actual graphics and sound of the original titles. Everything's spot on, from music to effects (at least from what I remember) to synthesized voice, and games run smooth as silk. There was a noticeable attempt to really integrate the games into the DualShock 2 control scheme, as some games actually rumble during the correct moments, and aside from the slight adjustment period needed to transition from a keypad and big ass disc to the more elegant controls of current systems, there's very little needed to get into the games.
Like any nostalgia collection, the games can only be as good as the source material they're derived from. In the case of Intellivision Lives!, it's a tough call. For about the price of a DVD offering a flashback look at classic gaming, you're getting the story of the company, told by the people who were there, and then you can experience their handiwork. Whether that's enough for most current gamers will probably be seen in the way the game sells, but for those of us who actually had (or at least played) an Intellivision, it's not a bad way to take a trip down memory lane, and an even nicer way to blow $20.
A collection of some 60+ games from the early 80's, plus a few unreleased titles, a slew of historical data on the games and some commercials and old video footage, Intellivision Lives! stands, if nothing else, as a comprehensive retelling of the quick rise and fall of an American video games manufacturer. Intellivision Productions, formed by former members of the original design teams, and developer Realtime Associates have done about as good a job as you can do making the games playable on the PS2, and added in touches of nostalgia along the way.
The games themselves are scattered around Hal's Pizza, the 3D front end Reatime created to serve up the different games. By spinning around 360°, you can take in the different arcade cabinets, divided into categories like Arcade, Sports and Space, goof around with the options (hidden behind the façade of a jukebox), or take a peek at the history of Intellivision, and the programmers who worked there. Hidden in almost every one of the cabinets are games that have certain goals (i.e. Finish the game with 20,000 points), which in turn unlock extras like commercials and archival footage. Good stuff.
Aside from the 3D front end and the basic effects that can be applied to the emulated games (none of which are all that fascinating), there's little to the Lives! experience other than the games themselves, and after 20 or so years, they fare better than one would expect, but it's doubtful that there's much here beyond the nostalgic attraction for us older gamers, not so much because the games as a whole are bad, but merely because there are so few really good ones that stand the test of time. For every Shark! Shark!, which is just plain timeless, there are plenty of Space Invaders or Breakout clones that just don't quite work as well.
In fact, I'd forgotten how common it was for games to be either ported or just plain ripped off from one medium to the other. It's a mind boggling concept to think that arcade machines once towered over home consoles, but it's a fact, and while the Intellivision was certainly more apt to handle straight conversions (anyone remember the 2600 Pac-Man debacle?), it's still a little odd in this day and age to see some pretty blatant clones.
Aside from the 3D front end, which does a decent job of presenting things, and the cycled Intellivision-themed tunes streaming from the jukebox that play while picking out your games (they slowly fade out as you play the game, a nice touch), there's little here besides the actual graphics and sound of the original titles. Everything's spot on, from music to effects (at least from what I remember) to synthesized voice, and games run smooth as silk. There was a noticeable attempt to really integrate the games into the DualShock 2 control scheme, as some games actually rumble during the correct moments, and aside from the slight adjustment period needed to transition from a keypad and big ass disc to the more elegant controls of current systems, there's very little needed to get into the games.
Like any nostalgia collection, the games can only be as good as the source material they're derived from. In the case of Intellivision Lives!, it's a tough call. For about the price of a DVD offering a flashback look at classic gaming, you're getting the story of the company, told by the people who were there, and then you can experience their handiwork. Whether that's enough for most current gamers will probably be seen in the way the game sells, but for those of us who actually had (or at least played) an Intellivision, it's not a bad way to take a trip down memory lane, and an even nicer way to blow $20.
