Also-ran Atari console rival from the days when cartridge-based video games still seemed just about a really good idea. Small controversy was drummed up with ads taking the Big A head on, and claiming technical superiority. But, in classic VHS-Betamax style, the better man lost, thanks to a lacklustre roster of games including Fantastic Voyage knock-off Microsurgeon and Burgertime, wherein giant sausages chased a chef up and down ladders.
Creamguide's Pick of the Day
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Trad Jazz Britannia
Friday, 21.00, BBC4It always amuses us when we see clips of Double Your Money and notice the category board includes both “jazz (traditional)” and “jazz (modern)”, though it is true that at that point trad really was big news, the nascent Pick of the Pops spinning off from Trad Tavern being just one example of its hold on the nation’s teens in the early sixties, despite it being influenced by music some forty years old at the time.
This was superior to Atari, I agree. I remember the football game being as ‘realistic as it got.’ I can’t remember the name of the educational English language game, but know it had monkeys that picked up letters with their tails.
One of the best Xmas presents I got.
The controllers were awful. The disc thingy wasn’t that effective as a joystick, and the main buttons were in the wrong place.
The Educational English Language game was called – I think – “Word-Fun”. It included 3 games, a Scrabble rip-off with no premium tiles (rubbish), a monkeys picking up letters in the jungle to spell words (not much better) and the excellent word rockets, where one collected vowels from the ground, and fired them at two consonants with a space in between scrolling across the screen.
The idea was that you had to hit the consonants with your vowel, but you only scored a point if consonant/vowel combo spelled an actual word. E.g. “C _ T” scrolls across the sky. Hit this with an A, O or U (i.e. splelling CAT, COT or CUT) and you gained a point, an I or E would be rejected and bounce off screen. With Rejected vowels bounced off with a satisfyingly comic “boing” sound. First to fifty won.
My mother worked at none more-cream era telly-shop Radio Rentals, and brought an console with several cartridges home to keep (for free) in about 1984, “Intellivision” already being obsolete. That said, the games weren’t that bad (“Soccer” and the fantastic “Sea Battles” stand out) and the console itself was rare enough to be an exotic novelty for Spectrum owning friends not to scoff.
There was a lot to be said for cartridge based games – they were a lot quicker to load than the cassette tapes that replaced them, as well as being more robust.
When Mattel launched this in America they stated that it could be upgradable to a full computer with keyboard.
The upgrade flopped when test marketed, & Mattel pulled the plug, only to be fined my trading standards for making false claims when launching the original console.
The controllers supposedly inspired the design of the iPod’s main control (now you know who to blame!).
still got mine!! also had the ultra voice synthiser box thingy!! but they never brought the games out that worked with it!!
I remember getting an Mattel Intellivision for christmas 1981 I think. Had games like skiing, soccer and golf but my favourites were “advanced dungeons and dragons” which i remember was very good and challanging for me as a 10 yr old.
The one game everyone loved was horse racing. Great game for many boxing days over next few years where all the adults betting on one of 6 horses and trying to work out the form guides while getting drunk.
After that remember getting games on birthdays and probably best one was “Tron: Deadly Disks”. Got really good at that game with repeat playing and me and my brother always beating each others high scores . Eventually in the late 80′s one of the disc controllers broke and I sold it for next to nothing to a neighbour, to buy a Commadore 64 , which in hindsight wasn’t a great move as i bet these are worth a fortune on ebay now :-(
One problem with them was the controllers being hard wired of most models.
Supposedly Apple were influence by the controller design for the main control on the iPod, so now you know who to blame!