I have an Intellivision since 1982. I still playing it from time to time. But I also liked to read the instructions manuals in order to better play the games. Atari was too simple to play. Intellivision will always be my number one console. Better graphics and better game play. What more can anyone ask?
I agree with you Pierre. I had the 2600 first and when the Intellivision came out got that system and it blew me away. It became my #1 game system only buying the 2600 games when they got very cheap. Nothing compared to Utopia or Advanced D & D Treasure Of Tarmin on the 2600. Also I do agree that the baseball was great on the Intellivision and many others. Real manuals are great. Sorry Player One Start but maybe you just had to be there. Intellivision was the better game system. It advanced what could be done.
Inty owner here since November 1983 (took a while for the System to get to Italy). It was great, period. That being said it totally lacked that whole bunch of Arcade Games conversions for the 2600 and we all know it. Too bad the 2600 adapter never made it to Italy since I'd definitely have enjoyed having the best of both worlds on my TV screen
Once I got the Atari, I was locked in and couldn't get a better system. I got a VIC-20 computer which was almost the same quality as Atari, but couldn't get a new console, until my siblings got the NES followed by the SNES while I was in college.
I grew up with the Intellivision as my first console, so getting used to the controller was no biggie. The Atari however does have a much larger line up and covers most of the classic arcade titles but the quality of game play does not compare. Intellivision is far more superior of a machine and had it been supported more, I sure it would have pulled ahead in popularity.
But since most of the games stunk on the Atari it was still not better and still a crappy system with crappy un fun games except for a few mostly a few Activision games.
I read Atari had 70-80% market share. So if they had less, meaning more people had Intellivision, Colecovision, and Odyssey2, would the '83 crash have happened? Too Big To Fail, comes to mind. I mean, just imagine if Colecovision got exclusive rights to Pac-Man...I don't think they'd have put out a sorry cart. Of course Atari could have made Pac-Man only for the 5200, so kids would have gone crazy begging for that system. Of course '82 was the year of shovelware, and kids wanted computers to make their own games.
So, because you can't get used to the Intellivision controller, the Atari 2600 is better? I'm not sure why you had such a hard time with the Intellivision games, 5 year old me figured them out no problem. I really think the Intellivision is better. But I also enjoy my 2600.
to be honest I agree. the point is that forget the console, the Atari Joystick is a design classic, I can't tell you how many I have broken ramming them from side to side, playing sports games. but the fact remains, that bad boy just fits in the hand, and it works, it was just out there, again there was nothing like it before, and to be honest I still love those joysticks. the intelvision was clumsy the leads where to short, and it was not tactile, ie the Atari controller just fitted in the hand and it worked, and given it was really the first Joystick out there, to me it still the best, ie I spent a lot of money on replacement joysticks, and yet we all went back to that original, be it used on the 2600, 400, 800, 800XL, and right through to the Atari STFM and STE. ie no other stick was the go to joystick, so hence my suporting the verdict of the above video.
AMEN! Personally i grew up with colecovision, and the games were far superior to the 2600. I had friends that had an atari, and i had friends that had intellivision, and i was always happy to get back to colecovision!. BTW, the good games, even back then, were $50. Funny how they've generally stayed at that price even decades later.
lol exactly. intellivision was not hard to handle at all, though you could end up with a sore thumb. Dungeons was the predecessor to Zelda. all the games just felt more immersive, and i hated the better graphic games that came later but could not capture the feel and thought that went into intellivision. I actually learned applicable techniques from the sport games! My friend who was studying to be a pilot said, simple graphics aside, the flight game felt realistic. defying his uber-nerd appearance, esentially this guy is saying 'intellivsion was hard', gimme a joystick and nothing to think about.
@@stevewalker4263 The comparison was Atari Vs Intellivision. The colecovision was a whole different beasty and released 3 year later than the intelvision.
I think Activision was criticized for porting games they made for Atari to Intellivision without doing any enhancements to take advantage of the superior system. So showing Pitfall and Stampede aren't impressive. There were so many ads in comic books where the Atari port screen was inferior to every other computer and console port of the same game.
I love the vintage commercials added into your reviews. I had Atari 2600, my friend had Intellivision and we both played the games and never worried which was better. I loved playing Burgertime on Intellivision though.
Well, you could say the joystick evolved into thumbsticks, and the dpad evolved from the NES of course. They have both merged into one device on modern controllers.
he Intellivision controller plays nothing like a gamepad. If the disc played like a D-pad, It would be better. At least Emerson added a joystick to it. I get what they were trying to do, but the execution was lacking.
@@triangleofdeath6246 If by "nothing like" you mean an Intellivision has 16 directions while a DPad has four, I can agree with you. If you added 12 more directions to a Dpad, you would, indeed, have the controller Mattel built 40 years ago.
You can't read the playbook and figure it out? Intellivision Football? Seriously? LoL I used to have epic games with my Dad as a kid (like age 7). It's not that hard to wrap your head around the play calling and it blew away most football games on the market before and since. The only limitation really is that if you break 100 points it starts over (so if you're up 93 - 75, if you score a touchdown you'll be losing). It's a great game though. I owned both Intellivision and Atari. I still have my Intellivision... All there is to say really.
you must have controller issues or something. I played football on intellivision so much we wore out the overlays. It was easy for me and my buddies, all born in the 70's, to figure out and enjoy although maybe being football fans helped. both great systems though, that's for sure.
never had trouble with anything on Intellivision. and collecovision - looked so much better. who cares? yeah it was buggy, hard to control, play was very simplistic, and it had that pacman knock off that probably killed some epileptics.
Yes, you need to learn how to play Intellivision Football, that was one of the best games along with their Baseball Cartridge. I still have both Atari 2600 & Intellivision from the late 70's. And once in a while I'll play them.
Me and my younger brother had both systems in the 1980's and while both were great, we both always thought the Intellivision games were just a bit more sophisticated. You had to read the manual on most of them to understand how to play vs. what most Atari games were.
@@johnboehmer6683 Sea battle was one of my preferred games, too - but my favorite was the (first) Tron one - I played that for HOURS in one go (and over years). The second Tron game was still very good, but a little bit too complex for some fast fun (nevertheless, I played that one quite often, too ;-) ).
Actually, I'd have to disagree with your effort on the intellivision football game review.. It is still an amazing game now and even more amazing for 1978. If you study the play manual, you will see the exact steps on how to program each play. You pick run,pass,or kick..then the formation, then the player, then the zone. I'm 48 now but I remember playing this game for hours with my buddy as a 13 yr old. The game was way ahead of it's time. Please look it over again. I have 3 intellivisions. Two I used for parts to make one good one. Still love the machine. Thanks for all you do. I subscribed and look forward to watching what you have produced.
Intellivision Baseball was the first game I ever played on that system. That game caused me to beg my parents for an Intellivision. They said I could only get it if I sold my Atari 2600. I sold it to a friend and still have my Intellivision. As a kid, I played countless games on each system, and I have to completely disagree. Intellivision was the far superior system for the day.
@@johnm3310 I just noticed in the demo he showed in the video how swinging late sends the ball to right field, a very realistic little nuance that made it the classic it is. That there could be errors... For example, if the ball is coming to your left fielder, and you're wanting to throw out a runner heading for third, if you pushed the third baseman too quick, the left fielder now misses the ball, error. Little things make the difference... Way ahead of its time.
@@johnboehmer6683 Both excellent points. Hitting to right was tough, because the rf could throw u out at first or get a force at 2nd.Only hit to right to move a runner from 2nd to 3rd. The only bad thing about baseball was it was a two player game. Not sure if later years changed that. I hated sitting at home wanting to play, but nobody was around. Enjoy your day
@@johnm3310 about 3 years ago I got a retro version Intellivision for $20 brand new at a dollar store that included, among the 60 included games, a revised version of baseball, and it's excellent. Among other improvements, you can in fact play against the computer.
The difference between the two systems was more pronounced then, than it seem now. Intellivision's graphics and sound were obviously better than the VCS 2600, and especially in games created just for it. As a person that owned both at the time they were released, I say Intellivision is better.
Yeah, I think the ultimate example of what you're talking about was Atlantis. I think it was made by Imagic. The look of the Intellivision version was far superior, and had the spaceship that could be jettisoned to do the fighting, giving you options the Atari version didn't. So much better. In contrast though, the 2 Pitfall versions he was showing looked virtually equal.
@@johnboehmer6683 I think he picked games that didn't contrast well. Frogger was a top-selling game for the Atari, and gets the job done, even if the 1983 Supercharger version looks better. I learned Intellivsion had a speech cartridge! Boy did I love games at the arcade that spoke to you like Gorf, Berzerk and Sinistar!
@@sandal_thong8631 Yeah, it was called intellivoice, we had three games on it, one was excellent, the other two were pretty good. They all seemed to have more memory than the other games besides being able to talk, because they were much more complex. Berserk was my favorite game at the arcade for a while.
Since my 8 year old self had no trouble reading the manual, figuring out what the overlays were for, and using the controllers i usually take these reviews lightly. Too many retro reviewers are looking at these consoles with decades later eyes. If you lived back then and saw the more options you got versus one button one joystick and better graphics you would think differently...since we were trying to get close to the arcade we went to every week. Deeper gameplay and the sports games looked and played better. (In a time we usually liked to go outside and really play sports ourselves) tron deadly discs, swords and serpents, astrosmash, baseball, and football were more fun to play than my friends atari. The only games that were the rage on atari we wanted to play was pitfall and missle command..maybe demon attack. Btw..we also usually played sitting on the floor in front of the tv....that includes atari owners, so cord length didnt matter to us. Decades later eyes ruins reviews like these
I agree that time has had a way of distorting my view on these consoles, as well as the fact that I didn't own an Intellivision until this review. However, with this review taking place 30 years later, it is hard to fairly judge either console. My main points against the Intellivision are mainly explanations as to why the Intellivision has faded and how the Atari 2600 made its way into legendary status. I actually still find myself playing the Intellivision more than the Atari these days because it is new to me. Anyway, thanks for watching!
@@PlayerOneStart Here's one big thing that I feel you missed playing Auto Racing for the first time as an adult in 2018. Driving games up until that point forced you to stay on the track, like Pole Position, Enduro or Night Driver. The fact that the game actually allowed to to drive off the road and into someone's backyard was hugely liberating for a kid forced to stay on the rails. I absolutely loved that about this game. Also, in case you haven't heard, Intellivision is releasing a new console in 2020 and they are remaking all of the old Intellivision games with modern graphics. It's a VC funded venture, not crowdsourcing, so this isn't another retro remake with no business model. I'm really excited to see what happens with this.
@@PlayerOneStart Intellivision faded because its parent company's mistakes, not unlike Commodore a few years later. It was a great product and its next gen would have been great (Motorola 68k cpu) but game crash came and the rest is history. The Coleco was a good (but expensive) console, except for its stupid intentional delay at boot.
@@PlayerOneStart Intellivision never faded, it was the console that didn't sell as well to begin with. It's like how Beta was superior to VHS but VHS won out in the end. But if you really dig in, you'll find that console designers clearly looked to the Intellivision for console design inspiration more than Atari. Just because one business failed while another succeeded doesn't;'t mean the failed company made a worse product. They simply didn't.
Intellivision >>>>>>>>> 2600, there's no comparison. You could do so much more on a well-designed game on the Intellivision (and there were a lot, especially the sports titles, Utopia, and a lot of the Mattel originals were incredible) because there was more than one action button. And you simply can't compare sound quality...Mattel really nailed that aspect of gaming.
@Jason Thompson More games is meaningless if they are unplayable, like VCS Pac-Man, and they mostly all are. Better access to third parties is likewise meaningless. So your two comments are meaningless.
@@TheLarryBrown People played the crap out of Atari Pac-Man due to Pac-Man Fever, just as they played knock-offs and maze w/dot games like Lock 'n' Chase, but from day-1 knew 2600 Pac-Man wasn't good. (How many returns?) It sold a lot of consoles, which made the Atari people happy because they figured out how to build them in Hong Kong or Taiwan for $40 and retail them for $120. Had they retired Atari 2600 after Christmas 1981 and released Pac-Man exclusively on the 5200 then that would have sold. Other poorly-made games also sold a lot (even if some were returned) e.g. Donkey Kong (Coleco's fault), Defender and E.T. I learned yesterday that the Atari 400/800 and 5200 were all 8-bit machines, but didn't have compatible cartridges between computers and video game console. That was an oversight too.
@@mikemulcahy52 We played sports games (skiing, football, baseball, and basketball) on the Odyssey². With the exception of Atari Basketball, they were better (but I couldn't get them to come to my place to play Basketball to prove it). Considering both used a joystick with one button, it's amazing you could do much in a sports game. Atari would eventually win a "which is better?" matchup in 1982 with Realsports and M-Network (by the makers of Intellivision) sports releases with 4K or 8K ROM carts. I learned this week that employees at Atari initially weren't too interested in Space Invaders or the port their programmer was working on until someone at Warner saw the figures for the coin-op and told them to get the rights "at all costs." Had Magnavox or Mattel gotten the rights, Atari wouldn't have won the console market in 1980.
3 of my friends had Atari and I asked for it for Xmas. My parents got me Intellivision and I was pissed. 1 month later, the other kids were coming to my place to play football and skiing. It was just better!
There are two versions of Auto Racing on Intellivision, the one you had (where you press a different portion of the disc to steer in a direction) and a different revision where the disc acts as a steering wheel, where you move your thumb around the edge to steer the car. The later version is a lot easier to use.
Seeing your video, I remembered I got to play Intellivision Auto Racing at the store while my folks were shopping. I didn't have a problem, and it looked great! As to controllers, it's obvious that the Atari joystick needed at least one more button. Defender's an example since you had to go off the top to hyperspace, and into the city to smart bomb.
Intellivision was awesome. I could literally play baseball against myself. I controlled the fielders and pitching with my right hand, and the hitting and baserunning with my left. I learned how to play poker on the intellivision. So glad that was the console my family bought me.
That's sad. Mattel messed up not having a 1-player option. (Something about the memory?) In 1982 they released ports of their games to Atari under M-Network and also without a 1-player option. If they had then maybe one or more would have sold 1 million. I bought 2 new including Super-Challenge Baseball where the "super-challenge" was to find someone willing to learn the controls.
Having an Intellivision (and still do) when I was younger, with Football, you had to enter the plays in a certain order and you had your favorite ones. I brought it out for Christmas a couple years ago and my cousin remembered his favorite play.
I was there, played with both as a kid and the Intellivision was hands down much, MUCH better. The only think it lacked, were the paddles used for pong like games. With the 2600 i got bored after about 5 minutes of playtime, with almost all games (Enduro and Adventure being a notable exceptions), but many Intellivision games would hookme half an hour or more. For some weird reason, a few Intellivision games were possible to play with the 2600 using some adapter, most notably that Baseball. So much talk about the "look" of the controllers, but you seem to have missed the most important thing: Number of buttons. Obviously Mattel was a bit ahead of its time, but a decade later they proved to be right. While the Atari controller has 4 directions and 1 button, the Intellivision had: 16 directions (yes, count them), 2 buttons (replicated in both sides) and the keypad which allowed for a lot of variety in games. Some games were made as simple as Atari games so you didn't need to mess much with the keypad, but in some others they were cleverly used. I could mention Sea Battle, for both keypad use and directions, but that wasn't the only one. I don't know where you got the specs, but the Intellivision cpu was actually slower (around 500khz), but 16 bit, tho cpu commands used 10 bit so its a bit weird to explain. Your Atari video output is definitely having trouble, it shouldn't be looking like that. Also there were two variants of auto racing that handle the cars a bit different, but the most fun of it was playing two players. You missed the best Intellivision games. While Atari had Activision (which also had games for Intellivision) the real star for Intellivision was Imagic. To have an Intellivision, without any Imagic games, was the same as owning the Atari without any Activision games. You want arcade games? Why don't you get Burgertime for both consoles? That's actually a Mattel game. The Nintendo game ports were garbage, and its no wonder. In 1983 they had their "console" out in Japan, with arcade quality game ports, which America would get to know later as "Nes". Sadly Mattel couldn't get the keyboard which the Famicom in Japan had, but was unceremoniously scrapped in its US release. Keyboard meant Basic, which meant "full" computer, one of the arguments of the game crash was personal computers were better.
It was easy to see that the Intellivision is more capable graphically, although I would have much preferred an analog joystick (a good one, not like the one on the Atari 5200) to the 16-direction control disc. Interestingly, the 2600, Atari 400/800, and Commodore computers were all capable of supporting analog joysticks, but it never happened, while the Apple II and IBM PC got analog joysticks. I really don't think any Intellivision games could be played on the 2600, but there was a 2600 clone from Mattel Electronics themselves called the System Changer that could be plugged into the Intellivision that allowed it to play 2600 games. Like the earlier ColecoVision Expansion Module #1, a licensing fee had to be paid to Atari for the proprietary TIA (clone) chip that is used. The 2600 controller has 8 directions, actually, plus one button. While Intellivision did end up innovating first with its standard controllers having lots of buttons, this idea as well as the idea of consoles being computers (which Mattel had promised for the Intellivision) had been around. Originally, the Atari 400 was to have been the 2600's successor as a console, and with _Star Raiders_ as its intended "killer app", Atari's intention was to give it controllers with lots of buttons. Then they sort of changed their minds and made the 400 a hybrid console-computer with a full, albeit cheap membrane-type, keyboard, and eventually sold it as a computer next to the 800 (which has a standard mechanical and was always intended to be a computer). With the membrane keyboard effectively providing lots of buttons, they dropped the new controllers (which might have been detached keyboards) and reverted to the 2600 joystick and button. A bit later, the rival console division within Atari decided to repackage the 400 as the 5200 without the keyboard and deliberately made it software-incompatible for some dumb reason, and naturally it was a failure (despite actually being a very capable console--more so than either the Intellivision or the ColecoVision in many ways). Where Atari was successful (besides the 2600), however, was in making a machine that could be both a really good console and really good 8-bit computer, which the Atari 8-bit computers were. Commodore would soon steal their thunder, though, convincing the public that home/family/personal computers were the way to go, and making their own computers with really good graphics and sound capabilities (especially the Commodore 64) while undercutting Atari in price, selling a lot more units than Atari or anyone else. Sadly, in contrast, Mattel was never able to deliver effectively on their promise to make the Intellivision into a computer (that was as capable as these other computers for a competitive price). The Keyboard Component was a disaster: large, expensive, unreliable, and not all that capable. It didn't even use the Intellivision's CPU, so it was really a separate computer except for electrical power and graphics. It used a 6502 CPU so Mattel could simply license an existing version of MicroSoft BASIC for cheap, but they couldn't get anything else done right. The ECS (Entertainment Computer System) was the backup plan that did reach the market, but hardly got anywhere. It was less expensive and used the Intellivision's CPU, but the version of BASIC written for it was flaky, and it only had 2K of RAM for programming anyway. Mattel shouldn't feel too bad, though. Despite Coleco coming much closer to succeeding with turning their ColecoVision into the Adam computer, that project cost so much and flopped so badly that it took the entire company down with it, while obviously Mattel is still around. As for the Famicom/NES' computer conversion, called Family BASIC, it was only released in Japan and was fairly successful, although it wasn't much better than the ECS. Users only had 2KB-4KB of memory for BASIC programs.
yes, I had both us a kid too. first the 2600 then the intellivision. The intellivision was hands down my favorite - could have been because of their superior sports games, which I liked best.... my intellivision was actually the intellivision 2 - same system just was smaller and had detacheable game controllers...
I think some of the Mattel programmers went to Imagic, so they knew how to enhance the games. Too bad their 1983 games were largely unwanted; but fathom looked good. Meanwhile, I had to laugh when I saw that all they did was translate Stampede and Pitfall for Intellivision and didn't enhance them for the superior graphics system; guess Activision didn't know how.
Not sure why you had so much trouble using the controller on the intellvision, I still have on from the 80's and can pick plays in football and drive race cars with no issue, glad you made this video but think you may be a bit biased, so many more options with intellvision controller. And I still own both systems and enjoy going back in time with them.
I enjoyed playing Auto Racing at a store while my parents were next door shopping. I had no problem figuring out how to maneuver the car with the controller, despite never playing it before.
The Atari was designed to run Pong and Combat, that's pretty much it. When you look at the Atari's better games, it's amazing the developers could make it happen at all (considering the Intellivision had125X more RAM). Oh, by the way, Mattel released M Network baseball for the 2600; it looked, played and sounded just like the Intellivision version. I played the heck out of that game.
I got M-Network baseball and loved it, but not having AI limited time spent; same with Armor Ambush. Atari's first 9 games from 1977 (using 2K carts, I think): Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Combat, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, Video Olympics. I had Combat and Surround which was retired and was sad they didn't bring it back for Tron, as the arcade had the gameplay with cycles. I got Indy 500 years later (sadly there was no part 2, or Tempest port to use the controller).
And heck just look at what the homebrew community and the denoscene is getting the 2600 to do. Heck just look at the latest video from zeropage homebrew showing a first person "3d" demo, and a pretty impressive RPG
In 1980 I played both systems extensively before deciding to go with Intellivision. The arcade style games were pretty similar in simplicity, but the available games with complexity and detail like Sub Hunt and Auto Racing were well beyond anything available for Atari. The comparison between the baseball games in this video pretty much sums it up, generally. I eventually acquired the Atari but seldom played it. The Intellivision was put through the paces with two and now three generations and is still in working order today. BTW, the guy in this video just didn't know how to manipulate Auto Racing - gotta brain invert for that one -
OMG, we had the Intellivision system. Great time to be a kid!! Loved the games sooo much more than our cousin's Atari (I believe it was the graphics and appearance of the games). Space Hawk, Space Armada, Bomb Squad, Stampede (Activision), and of course Boxing, Football, Baseball - the list of games we enjoyed goes on and on. Our father used to play Poker and Blackjack all the time - Lol (bringing back great memories). Hours and hours of fun, fun, fun! 💜 (Hmmmm...I wonder if I can fix the old console!?!)
My father was on the Play Cable design team, which provided games that downloaded over the cable system to Intellivision! This was WAY ahead of its time. Anyway, the engineers made tape drive systems to put all the games on tapes, so we had just about every available game. That was one thing that got me started with electronics as a kid. I was amazed at those tape drives and the whole system. The Intellivision was for people that were more intelligent. You mentioned about “anyone can walk up and play it”. Well, that’s nice for an 8 year old, but games like Utopia and Snafu were thinking games. By the way, in one part of the video, you didn’t have the overlay all the way in. Plus, there are finger holes on the sides of the cartridge holder, but you struggled to pull it out the wrong way. Mattel even did a better job at packaging. They were a class act. The hardware was based on chips from General Instrument; even the processor. I can say now as an engineer that the design of the Intellivision was vastly superior, but the controllers you seem to despise were much better as a user interface than the dumb Atari joystick. If you’re beyond basic, the Intellivision is likely more your style than the pong-ish Atari.
It's easier to learn how to master controls as a pre-teen (like I was when I was playing both these consoles), than when you have been a grown man for many years. This is probably why you aren't fond of the disk.
My stepfather used to kibitz while we tried to play Lemmings on SNES. Getting the control to engage at the precise moment was easier said then done. I think I gave up on it.
Atari Joysticks were functionally good, but they were FRAGILE! We went through 3 or 4 of 'em, and that was just one person playing it for the most part. The plastic "ring" inside them would eventually break after a while. The INTV discs were a little awkward, but they never broke!
I asked Mom this week if she remembered buying Atari console and cartridges for me and she said she only remembered me breaking "lots" of joysticks that my grandfather had to repair (it was one or two).
Yeahh right and what about the graphics and the intellivoice there is no point of comparison my friend intellivision was totally the best console on those days, even after Atari release the 5600, once you get use to the controller you will notice that it was best on those days
This video's a bit of a shit-show. I watched it two years ago, and changed to thumbs-down. He picked the games made for 2600 that had least enhancement when doing an Intellivision port. I learned this week that Atari was going to use the 6502 processor, which Intellivision, VIC-20 and others used, but made a deal to get a cheaper, modified chip, called the 6507, thus sabotaging their own system for its 1977 release.
Dude, you lost me at the controller comparison. "9 times out of ten" the overlay was just numbers that didn't tell you anything?!?! Complete BS right there! Sure, if the button wasn't needed, but 9 times out of ten the overlays included icons that showed the function of the button! They were numbered too, often times, but you're just talking out of your butt, lol. And if you can't switch directions quickly with the directional disc then that seems like a physical limitation you have, not the controller. It was never a problem for me as a kid. The directional disc is the predecessor to every controller that exists today! Try being left handed and playing an Atari. It's far and away more difficult to do that than to use an Intellivision controller. And Intellivision built their system for left AND right handed players! You lose, and you're just wrong about almost everything here. Atari was fine, Intellivision was superior in every single way.
the intellevision controller was PERFECT, more like a gaming keyword+mouse. And I was a master in Auto-racing. u need to start with slow car.. and use the controller as a steering wheel , at the begining u can turn the controller in the direction of the car until u are able tu automate the turn in reverse way when car is going down
The 2600 controller was an absolute nightmare that greatly limited games and made for terribly imprecise control. The Intellivision controller could be uncomfortable if the side buttons were stiff, but otherwise it was a huge step up. It was twice as precise, with 16 directions instead of 8, and games regularly took advantage of the many buttons.
I never had any trouble with the buttons whatsoever, I might get a sore thumb off the directional circle if I was playing an intense game for hours though. No biggie...
Uhm, you're wrong! I think the 2600's controller is great! BUT, I still think the 7800's joystick is the best joystick for home systems, as it's got 2 buttons and is really simple, unlike the nightmarish disk on the INTV and the buttons that most didn't even need.
@@ecernosoft3096 Games regularly made use of the buttons on the Intellivision controller. I had about 30 games for that system. They often came with overlays for the controller than showed what each key did. I owned an Atari 7800, and there's no question that the flexibility of the Intellivision controller had big advantages. There is a reason that modern game systems have expanded beyond 1 or 2 buttons and have added more than 8 directions. The NES had 4 buttons. The SNES had 8. Modern controllers have 10 with 2 analog sticks and a directional pad that can be used for additional button type input. PC games designed for keyboard and mouse go even further.
I have to wonder how many good games might have been made if they released a joystick with two or more buttons? And only Indy 500 used the steering controller so we never got Tempest port.
Also a true trackball controller that works like a mouse for Missile Command. They programmed the computer versions with a trackball in mind, but not the 2600.
Games had these things called manuals ! You read them cover to cover and then again and kept referring to them when playing ! That’s how real old school was done ! Pick up and play !?! No that’s arcade games , not intelivision ! Atari yes , this is why intelivision was different, it required a little more thought to play the games . Like bomb squad or b17 bomber . Intellivsion was the best in the day, ATARI was rubbish !
B 17 Bomber WAS awesome! You truly had to be multifaceted in employing sounds strategy, fighting ability, fuel management, and good aim in bomb release. That it effectively recreated world war II gave you an even greater satisfaction, in that you were destroying the Nazis, maybe the ultimate bad guys.
The Intellivsion controller made you keep looking at the controller to know what to do. If you have to do that for a controller, the controller failed its only purpose.
@@tempatchtheveryweird3665 A controller that has one purpose is one that has a single control. An Intellivision controller has fifteen controls. You read that right, FIFTEEN. Plus another another eight directions that VCS never heard of. So it didn't fail "its only purpose." I'll admit that it could have been better, what can't? And the Xbox style controllers now popular may offer some advantages in the "no look" department. On the other hand, this was forty years ago and you know what? I bet those Xbox controller still don't have fifteen functions????? Perfect: maybe not. Totally awesome: Definitely. If the controller were a fail you wouldn't have me here saying its not. That Intellivision has so many rabid believers shows the controller is not a problem. YOU are the person that can't play.
There are PLENTY of Atari games that need the manual. Not my kind of games but I could name quite a few from ET to Basic Programming. Plus the average cart had a dozen or more variation channels that werent always self explanatory. Especially the older ones. Even simple arcade games can use the manual, I read them online before playing.. Asteroids has 60 game types alone.
I grew up with the Intellivision, but always envied the Atari because of all the games they had, but hadn't played one. It wasn't until I finally went to friends house and played their 2600 , that I realized that the Intellivison was much better. The controller was not great, but still better than the Atari. I have no idea how he had so much problem using one, my family all did fine with it when we were kids. The only win I would give the Atari is in popularity and number of games and high profile games. I didn't know any other kids with an Intellivision growing up and felt left out of some of the playground discussions about games because they weren't available on my system. But after comparing them I never felt bad about it again, I always felt that the gaming experience was better on Intellivision.
After Asteroids, I felt bad because all the games in ads looked bad on the Atari. I knew their 1978 sports games weren't as good, too. But there were a couple years when playing Missile Command, Space Invaders and others felt good.
While the atari controller was definitely easier to use and more of a pick-up-and-play, the single button was a serious hindrance to better games. When porting certain arcade games, the 2600 version would often have to be significantly modified to deal with a 1-button limitation. I remember being disappointed that Missile Command only had 1 missile base but there was no other choice given the single button. I loved my 2600 and my 400/800 computers. They all used the same joystick controller. But it would've been better if even a 2nd button was added. The Intellivision controller was not great either for entirely different reasons. But it was definitely more flexible.
Atari could have done that if they wanted to, either in it's release in 1977 or any year later, like with the release of Defender (not a good port) but didn't bother.
I thoroughly enjoyed all of the games on my Intellivision! I never had a problem with the game pad. Other than the number buttons wearing out and getting really hard to press after a while. My Atari owning friends always came to my house to play baseball on the Intellivision.
@@sandal_thong8631 I agree everyone I knew and I was 10 in 79 when Intellivision was released I had Atari heavy sixer in 77 and in 1980 it was 10-1 everyone had an Atari there were more games and to me better because of the controller and in 81 heard about the Colecovision coming out soon and I knew that was my next console
To call an offensive play for the Intellivision football game requires a 4 digit number. Like 9323 and then you hit enter. And to call a defensive play you just enter a number between 1-9 and then press enter. I played that game for hours and hours at a time.
Coleco handled the 2600 and Intellivision ports of Donkey Kong themselves as they had the license from Nintendo to produce the home version and they intentionally made them inferior to make their own ColecoVision port look that much better. Nothing could stop them from doing so back then and it worked to their advantage superbly. Personally, I had a ColecoVision and it's still my preferred console from that generation. The other two have their strong points, of course, and I enjoy using them depending on the games in question. The Intellivision has a really good port of BurgerTime and the VCS has a very smooth running version of GORF. And the Atari adapters exist for the other two machines because the VCS uses all off-the-shelf parts, nothing inside it was their own proprietary creation. Totally legal.
I think that's a myth about Donkey Kong (which sold 4 million+) and other games, as ColecoVision only sold 2 million consoles and once you got a game you weren't going to buy it again on another system (unless you were a fanatic or weird). You'd think Intellivision would have liked to have an M-Network game sell 1 million copies, but not enough to create an A.I. for 1-player games, so they just did a translation. Their best for Intellivison was MLB Baseball which sold 900,000.
Intellivision was ahead of its time. If the Atari controllers are as good as you say, why don't all game consoles today have joysticks? Seems the D-pad is what every console has had for the 20+ years since the Intellivision came out. Maybe that's because it's better?
Intellivision design is Better Atari is not better looking or better designed, just because something is a legend does not make it better looking and designed than any other system, The Atari does not look better and is not better designed then today's current gen systems. Intellivision controllers are Not Hard to use once you use them for a few minutes. I hate people that bash the Intellivision controllers.
I grew up with the Intellivision II, i think it had a much better and compact design than the original (and critical for playing Microsurgeon alone). From my point of view the Atari looks ugly, one if its variants (without the fake wood) was called Darth Vader for a reason... There is also the "80ies" look with some shiny metal and rainbow stripe. But most importantly its deceiving, you open the Atari and its mostly empty inside, wasting a lot of space for no particular reason.
Growing up, I had the Atari and my friend had the Intellivision. It's safe to say that we both had reason to be jealous of each other's consoles. The Atari had all the licensed arcade games and majored in fast-action "twitch" gameplay. The Intellivision majored in slightly deeper games, like sports and strategy. Main mistake they made with the Intellivision, I think, was wiring the controllers to the console, meaning there was no way they could release other controllers, like an arcade stick, or paddle, and you couldn't easily replace them if your dad trod on one. One of the best things about the Atari is that its joystick is absolutely generic, so you could easily plug in alternate joysticks - or even a Sega Megadrive (a.k.a. Genesis) pad. To be honest, when I play Atari these days it's the Megadrive pad that I use - it's so much more comfortable to use than the original joystick.
Try comparing Atari Defender II (Stargate) to Masters of the Universe. Defender II blew my MIND back in the day. One of the games on Atari that seemed quite literally IMPOSSIBLE, that it was that good. Oh, and Enduro truly ROCKED.
Yeah, that adapter for the Colecovision to allow 2600 games to be played on it originally caused Atari to sue Coleco. In the end, Coleco won, because Coleco showed that they simply reverse-engineered the Atari chip technology, which was completely valid and legal.
Having had these simultaneously when growing up, the Intellivision was my favourite. Yes, the controller wasn't great for some games, but it was pretty decent for others. Games that took advantage of the extra buttons were a treat. It was the games that were ports of regular joystick games that didn't feel good on the Intellivision, but thankfully the Intellivision had a lot of more unusual games in its library that benefited from the extra buttons. Those games simply would not be possible on the Atari. In terms of my personal ranking, the Atari is the nostalgic pick, but the Intellivision is the overall winner. PvP sports or driving games on it were unbeatable for the time.
The controller was the only negative short of limited 3rd-party games made for them. If they'd used a joystick w/buttons and keypad like the 5200, that could have worked. I'm thinking Intellivision's were also built in and hard to replace or repair?
The intellivision controller is the quickest and most precise ever BUT you have to understand that left hand is for grasping it and side buttons and right hand for disc. For Tron : Deadly Disks you have to switch hands: your right will activate the weapon with the keyboard and the left will direct your character. Plenty enough of people have scored giga high scores in intellivision games without finishing in a tree every 10 seconds like in your video. The Atari controller is one of the worst nightmares ever seen, toped only by the one of a "Philips Videopack" console. Needless to say more. / Edited to add : Forgot to say that only tourists would keep the overlay whilst playing...
My brother n law had intellivision and we would play all the sport games which were miles ahead of atari. Intellivision was better in every way. Intellivision's controller allowed for more complex games like Utopia and many other. Atari only had the stick and button which held back more complex gameplay. I always like Intellivision better.
Depends what you want to do with it. If you have someone to play with then MLB Baseball, NFL Football, and Auto Racing would be fun. If you don't then you'll have more fun playing Atari Space Invaders, Missile Command and Asteroids, not counting arcade games that came out in 1982-3 like Berzerk, Moon Patrol, Ms. Pac-Man, etc.
Both machines were awesome in their own way. Space Battle, Advanced D&D, Burgertime, and Tron Deadly Discs were my “killer apps”, and I bought a Sears Intellivision (Super Video Arcade) with my own money as a kid. I also had the 2600, and preferred its Donkey Kong port. Intellivision Defender and Pac Man are REALLY GOOD, and certainly superior to their 2600 counterparts.
I'm glad you didn't compare Intellivision's Turbo to Atari's Enduro. That would have been an embarrassment. As for Auto Racing, you have to touch "left" or "right" on the directional disc to steer the car left or right. In 1980, nobody seemed to understand that.
Turbo was my favorite auto-racing game in the arcade for awhile, but wasn't on the Atari. I guess Intellivision got it or licensed it exclusively? My only experience playing Intellivision was playing Auto Racing for an hour in the store, and I figured it out.
Well when you consider the VCS/2600 was never originally meant to have the games it did (it was only meant for games like tank and pong) it's actually pretty impressive what people back in the day did with it and the homebrew and demoscene is currently doing with the 2600. Of course the intellivision has the better hardware, and more capable in every way, and better games if the devs put time and effort into said game. I had both and enjoyed playing both. The VCS/2600 will always have a soft spot in my heart as it was my first game console as a kid, I can't slam it like many other are doing.
I understand about the Intellivision controller. For me it was simply uncomfortable to use rather than awkward. But due to the console's better games I was willing to look past it.
Yeah, every time I played it the disc made my thumbs sore, and the buttons on the sides of the controller wasn't too comfortable either, it just made my hand cramp up. I modified the controller to have a joystick which made it more comfortable to use.
Intellivision always had better looking games than the Atari 2600. I remember being amazed by the running man animation (in some of the games) and all the Tron games.
The original 2600 controller (you don't have one in this video) is extremely good and MUCH better made than the one you have. I have 2 of them and they are so much easier on your hands. Basically there are fairly heavy springs on the inside and a metal Atari logo on the top of the stick, which none of them have anymore. They only exist on the original made in California Atari VCS.
@@sandal_thong8631 The one I use is 40 years old with a lot of use just by me. They were MUCH, MUCH better made than the ones that came later. They switched to the later CX40 (the one everyone knows) because it was a lot cheaper to make.
To me, the Intellivision was superfluous. Most of the games on offer looked like slightly nicer looking versions of games that I already owned for the Atari which was still holding its own just fine.
Mattel remedied that with the Intellivision II - detachable controllers. But yea, you have a point. The Intv II controllers felt a bit cheaper and were more painful to play on which put the final nail in the coffin for that system.
@@Meebzorp5200 the controls for intellevision (1 &2) never felt comfortable to me.the Atari controllers could hurt your hands after an hour or so,but u could get alternate controllers,so that helped for sure.
I really like the Intellivision and think it has a fantastic library but I can't get past that controller. It literally hurts my hand the way I have to hold it. I hear there's a modern controller that someone on Atariage is selling but it's pretty pricey
Intellivision sports games were the best. Only downside was that they were 2 player only. I had epic games against my brothers. Mostly with football, hockey, and soccer
Once I saw the title of this video, I immediately thought, "It all comes down to the controllers." Intellivision would probably be rated much higher in this regard, although between the sentiment, gameplay, and the vast library of cartridges from multiple companies - the Atari 2600 is my preferred system, overall. I did, however, enjoy the D&D games, Baseball, Utopia, and various Imagic releases for the Intellivision - which I never owned until getting the flashback version a few years ago, which I recommend. With that said, there were add on joystick accessories to convert the disc controllers, though I didn't know anyone who had them. And, considering that this comparative review was to present the systems without any enhancing accessories, it kept it straight forward. Thanks for the video!
My Brother and I played Intellivision football so much...great game. Downhill skiing was another good one. If you wanted to play decent sports game at the time, Intellivision blew Atari out of the water, in graphics and game play.
I like how he says that he is not going to compare the system hardware technology-wise and then immediately starts comparing the hardware technology-wise.
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I have an Intellivision since 1982. I still playing it from time to time. But I also liked to read the instructions manuals in order to better play the games. Atari was too simple to play. Intellivision will always be my number one console. Better graphics and better game play. What more can anyone ask?
Yes. It required more intelligent play
I am an Atari computer 8bit user(to this day lol) but I never understood the hype for the 2600.
I agree with you Pierre. I had the 2600 first and when the Intellivision came out got that system and it blew me away. It became my #1 game system only buying the 2600 games when they got very cheap. Nothing compared to Utopia or Advanced D & D Treasure Of Tarmin on the 2600. Also I do agree that the baseball was great on the Intellivision and many others. Real manuals are great. Sorry Player One Start but maybe you just had to be there. Intellivision was the better game system. It advanced what could be done.
Inty owner here since November 1983 (took a while for the System to get to Italy). It was great, period. That being said it totally lacked that whole bunch of Arcade Games conversions for the 2600 and we all know it. Too bad the 2600 adapter never made it to Italy since I'd definitely have enjoyed having the best of both worlds on my TV screen
Once I got the Atari, I was locked in and couldn't get a better system. I got a VIC-20 computer which was almost the same quality as Atari, but couldn't get a new console, until my siblings got the NES followed by the SNES while I was in college.
Nice to see someone to make videos about Mattel Intellivision and Atari 2600. Good Old Times! ;-)
I grew up with the Intellivision as my first console, so getting used to the controller was no biggie. The Atari however does have a much larger line up and covers most of the classic arcade titles but the quality of game play does not compare. Intellivision is far more superior of a machine and had it been supported more, I sure it would have pulled ahead in popularity.
But since most of the games stunk on the Atari it was still not better and still a crappy system with crappy un fun games except for a few mostly a few Activision games.
Yes Activision made many great games.. you could usually trust that brand when you seen it.
The reality is that there are good and bad games on both. But the bad to good ratio is much,much higher on Atari.
@@KC9UDX true that!
I read Atari had 70-80% market share. So if they had less, meaning more people had Intellivision, Colecovision, and Odyssey2, would the '83 crash have happened? Too Big To Fail, comes to mind. I mean, just imagine if Colecovision got exclusive rights to Pac-Man...I don't think they'd have put out a sorry cart. Of course Atari could have made Pac-Man only for the 5200, so kids would have gone crazy begging for that system. Of course '82 was the year of shovelware, and kids wanted computers to make their own games.
So, because you can't get used to the Intellivision controller, the Atari 2600 is better? I'm not sure why you had such a hard time with the Intellivision games, 5 year old me figured them out no problem. I really think the Intellivision is better. But I also enjoy my 2600.
to be honest I agree. the point is that forget the console, the Atari Joystick is a design classic, I can't tell you how many I have broken ramming them from side to side, playing sports games. but the fact remains, that bad boy just fits in the hand, and it works, it was just out there, again there was nothing like it before, and to be honest I still love those joysticks. the intelvision was clumsy the leads where to short, and it was not tactile, ie the Atari controller just fitted in the hand and it worked, and given it was really the first Joystick out there, to me it still the best, ie I spent a lot of money on replacement joysticks, and yet we all went back to that original, be it used on the 2600, 400, 800, 800XL, and right through to the Atari STFM and STE. ie no other stick was the go to joystick, so hence my suporting the verdict of the above video.
AMEN! Personally i grew up with colecovision, and the games were far superior to the 2600. I had friends that had an atari, and i had friends that had intellivision, and i was always happy to get back to colecovision!. BTW, the good games, even back then, were $50. Funny how they've generally stayed at that price even decades later.
lol exactly. intellivision was not hard to handle at all, though you could end up with a sore thumb. Dungeons was the predecessor to Zelda.
all the games just felt more immersive, and i hated the better graphic games that came later but could not capture the feel and thought that went into intellivision.
I actually learned applicable techniques from the sport games! My friend who was studying to be a pilot said, simple graphics aside, the flight game felt realistic.
defying his uber-nerd appearance, esentially this guy is saying 'intellivsion was hard', gimme a joystick and nothing to think about.
@@stevewalker4263 The comparison was Atari Vs Intellivision. The colecovision was a whole different beasty and released 3 year later than the intelvision.
Dave Pavey clunky, maybe a bit, but 16 directions versus 8....no comparison but in favour of the Intellevision
I'm blown away by the smooth fluid graphics of the Intellivison!
I think Activision was criticized for porting games they made for Atari to Intellivision without doing any enhancements to take advantage of the superior system. So showing Pitfall and Stampede aren't impressive. There were so many ads in comic books where the Atari port screen was inferior to every other computer and console port of the same game.
On either system, God forbid you have arthritis.
I love the vintage commercials added into your reviews. I had Atari 2600, my friend had Intellivision and we both played the games and never worried which was better. I loved playing Burgertime on Intellivision though.
Ads of the day were something to see. Demon Attack ad sold it and made it a top seller. Too bad they ripped off Phoenix and had to settle.
There's a reason why the joystick is pretty much gone now and a 'D-pad' is still included on the controllers of every major console.
Well, you could say the joystick evolved into thumbsticks, and the dpad evolved from the NES of course. They have both merged into one device on modern controllers.
he Intellivision controller plays nothing like a gamepad. If the disc played like a D-pad, It would be better. At least Emerson added a joystick to it. I get what they were trying to do, but the execution was lacking.
@@triangleofdeath6246 If by "nothing like" you mean an Intellivision has 16 directions while a DPad has four, I can agree with you. If you added 12 more directions to a Dpad, you would, indeed, have the controller Mattel built 40 years ago.
@@TheLarryBrown Ooh. Smack!
@@TheLarryBrown Doesn't a D-pad have 8 possible directions?
You can't read the playbook and figure it out? Intellivision Football? Seriously? LoL I used to have epic games with my Dad as a kid (like age 7). It's not that hard to wrap your head around the play calling and it blew away most football games on the market before and since. The only limitation really is that if you break 100 points it starts over (so if you're up 93 - 75, if you score a touchdown you'll be losing). It's a great game though. I owned both Intellivision and Atari. I still have my Intellivision... All there is to say really.
101 points: you lose! LOL
you must have controller issues or something. I played football on intellivision so much we wore out the overlays. It was easy for me and my buddies, all born in the 70's, to figure out and enjoy although maybe being football fans helped. both great systems though, that's for sure.
never had trouble with anything on Intellivision. and collecovision - looked so much better. who cares? yeah it was buggy, hard to control, play was very simplistic, and it had that pacman knock off that probably killed some epileptics.
Yep, NFL football was easy to control and a beautiful game
I loved that game too...it was one of the best early designed games and was ahead of its time.
Yes, you need to learn how to play Intellivision Football, that was one of the best games along with their Baseball Cartridge. I still have both Atari 2600 & Intellivision from the late 70's.
And once in a while I'll play them.
Me and my younger brother had both systems in the 1980's and while both were great, we both always thought the Intellivision games were just a bit more sophisticated. You had to read the manual on most of them to understand how to play vs. what most Atari games were.
I had close to 40 games for my intellivision...enjoyed sea battle with my father and brothers
Everybody seems to love Sea Battle, I never had that one. Wish I did now.
@@johnboehmer6683 Sea battle was one of my preferred games, too - but my favorite was the (first) Tron one - I played that for HOURS in one go (and over years). The second Tron game was still very good, but a little bit too complex for some fast fun (nevertheless, I played that one quite often, too ;-) ).
Actually, I'd have to disagree with your effort on the intellivision football game review.. It is still an amazing game now and even more amazing for 1978. If you study the play manual, you will see the exact steps on how to program each play. You pick run,pass,or kick..then the formation, then the player, then the zone. I'm 48 now but I remember playing this game for hours with my buddy as a 13 yr old. The game was way ahead of it's time. Please look it over again. I have 3 intellivisions. Two I used for parts to make one good one. Still love the machine. Thanks for all you do. I subscribed and look forward to watching what you have produced.
Feel better? Notice not one response in two years? It’s because no one gives a shit what you think
Funny, I got RealSports Football and M-Network football years later and haven't yet mastered the controls with the joystick.
He an Atari fanboy, so Atari wins, no matter what.
He (and I) needed a childhood friend who had Intellivision.
Wtf he thinks Coleco is better than Atari
Intellivision Baseball was the first game I ever played on that system. That game caused me to beg my parents for an Intellivision. They said I could only get it if I sold my Atari 2600. I sold it to a friend and still have my Intellivision. As a kid, I played countless games on each system, and I have to completely disagree. Intellivision was the far superior system for the day.
Intellivision Baseball is one of the greatest games ever invented.
@@johnm3310 I just noticed in the demo he showed in the video how swinging late sends the ball to right field, a very realistic little nuance that made it the classic it is. That there could be errors... For example, if the ball is coming to your left fielder, and you're wanting to throw out a runner heading for third, if you pushed the third baseman too quick, the left fielder now misses the ball, error. Little things make the difference... Way ahead of its time.
@@johnboehmer6683 Both excellent points. Hitting to right was tough, because the rf could throw u out at first or get a force at 2nd.Only hit to right to move a runner from 2nd to 3rd.
The only bad thing about baseball was it was a two player game. Not sure if later years changed that. I hated sitting at home wanting to play, but nobody was around.
Enjoy your day
@@johnm3310 about 3 years ago I got a retro version Intellivision for $20 brand new at a dollar store that included, among the 60 included games, a revised version of baseball, and it's excellent. Among other improvements, you can in fact play against the computer.
Intellivision is better for me !!!
Atari is better for me 🥴
@@salamhane2008 good for you loser
The difference between the two systems was more pronounced then, than it seem now. Intellivision's graphics and sound were obviously better than the VCS 2600, and especially in games created just for it. As a person that owned both at the time they were released, I say Intellivision is better.
Yeah, I think the ultimate example of what you're talking about was Atlantis. I think it was made by Imagic. The look of the Intellivision version was far superior, and had the spaceship that could be jettisoned to do the fighting, giving you options the Atari version didn't. So much better. In contrast though, the 2 Pitfall versions he was showing looked virtually equal.
@@johnboehmer6683 I think he picked games that didn't contrast well. Frogger was a top-selling game for the Atari, and gets the job done, even if the 1983 Supercharger version looks better.
I learned Intellivsion had a speech cartridge! Boy did I love games at the arcade that spoke to you like Gorf, Berzerk and Sinistar!
@@sandal_thong8631
Yeah, it was called intellivoice, we had three games on it, one was excellent, the other two were pretty good. They all seemed to have more memory than the other games besides being able to talk, because they were much more complex.
Berserk was my favorite game at the arcade for a while.
Since my 8 year old self had no trouble reading the manual, figuring out what the overlays were for, and using the controllers i usually take these reviews lightly. Too many retro reviewers are looking at these consoles with decades later eyes. If you lived back then and saw the more options you got versus one button one joystick and better graphics you would think differently...since we were trying to get close to the arcade we went to every week. Deeper gameplay and the sports games looked and played better. (In a time we usually liked to go outside and really play sports ourselves) tron deadly discs, swords and serpents, astrosmash, baseball, and football were more fun to play than my friends atari. The only games that were the rage on atari we wanted to play was pitfall and missle command..maybe demon attack.
Btw..we also usually played sitting on the floor in front of the tv....that includes atari owners, so cord length didnt matter to us. Decades later eyes ruins reviews like these
I agree that time has had a way of distorting my view on these consoles, as well as the fact that I didn't own an Intellivision until this review. However, with this review taking place 30 years later, it is hard to fairly judge either console. My main points against the Intellivision are mainly explanations as to why the Intellivision has faded and how the Atari 2600 made its way into legendary status. I actually still find myself playing the Intellivision more than the Atari these days because it is new to me. Anyway, thanks for watching!
@@PlayerOneStart Here's one big thing that I feel you missed playing Auto Racing for the first time as an adult in 2018. Driving games up until that point forced you to stay on the track, like Pole Position, Enduro or Night Driver. The fact that the game actually allowed to to drive off the road and into someone's backyard was hugely liberating for a kid forced to stay on the rails. I absolutely loved that about this game.
Also, in case you haven't heard, Intellivision is releasing a new console in 2020 and they are remaking all of the old Intellivision games with modern graphics. It's a VC funded venture, not crowdsourcing, so this isn't another retro remake with no business model. I'm really excited to see what happens with this.
same reason when people think of 80s music they think of brit pop or hair metal, not the great post-punk bands?
@@PlayerOneStart Intellivision faded because its parent company's mistakes, not unlike Commodore a few years later. It was a great product and its next gen would have been great (Motorola 68k cpu) but game crash came and the rest is history. The Coleco was a good (but expensive) console, except for its stupid intentional delay at boot.
@@PlayerOneStart Intellivision never faded, it was the console that didn't sell as well to begin with. It's like how Beta was superior to VHS but VHS won out in the end.
But if you really dig in, you'll find that console designers clearly looked to the Intellivision for console design inspiration more than Atari. Just because one business failed while another succeeded doesn't;'t mean the failed company made a worse product. They simply didn't.
Intellivision >>>>>>>>> 2600, there's no comparison. You could do so much more on a well-designed game on the Intellivision (and there were a lot, especially the sports titles, Utopia, and a lot of the Mattel originals were incredible) because there was more than one action button. And you simply can't compare sound quality...Mattel really nailed that aspect of gaming.
@Jason Thompson More games is meaningless if they are unplayable, like VCS Pac-Man, and they mostly all are. Better access to third parties is likewise meaningless. So your two comments are meaningless.
@@TheLarryBrown People played the crap out of Atari Pac-Man due to Pac-Man Fever, just as they played knock-offs and maze w/dot games like Lock 'n' Chase, but from day-1 knew 2600 Pac-Man wasn't good. (How many returns?) It sold a lot of consoles, which made the Atari people happy because they figured out how to build them in Hong Kong or Taiwan for $40 and retail them for $120. Had they retired Atari 2600 after Christmas 1981 and released Pac-Man exclusively on the 5200 then that would have sold. Other poorly-made games also sold a lot (even if some were returned) e.g. Donkey Kong (Coleco's fault), Defender and E.T.
I learned yesterday that the Atari 400/800 and 5200 were all 8-bit machines, but didn't have compatible cartridges between computers and video game console. That was an oversight too.
@@mikemulcahy52 We played sports games (skiing, football, baseball, and basketball) on the Odyssey². With the exception of Atari Basketball, they were better (but I couldn't get them to come to my place to play Basketball to prove it). Considering both used a joystick with one button, it's amazing you could do much in a sports game. Atari would eventually win a "which is better?" matchup in 1982 with Realsports and M-Network (by the makers of Intellivision) sports releases with 4K or 8K ROM carts.
I learned this week that employees at Atari initially weren't too interested in Space Invaders or the port their programmer was working on until someone at Warner saw the figures for the coin-op and told them to get the rights "at all costs." Had Magnavox or Mattel gotten the rights, Atari wouldn't have won the console market in 1980.
3 of my friends had Atari and I asked for it for Xmas. My parents got me Intellivision and I was pissed. 1 month later, the other kids were coming to my place to play football and skiing. It was just better!
Definitely better for sports. But I guess you went to their place a year or two later for Missile Command and Pac-Man.
There are two versions of Auto Racing on Intellivision, the one you had (where you press a different portion of the disc to steer in a direction) and a different revision where the disc acts as a steering wheel, where you move your thumb around the edge to steer the car. The later version is a lot easier to use.
By far, the first version was really hard, you always had to adjust for the different direction you were going...no fun.
?! The later one is impossible!
Seeing your video, I remembered I got to play Intellivision Auto Racing at the store while my folks were shopping. I didn't have a problem, and it looked great! As to controllers, it's obvious that the Atari joystick needed at least one more button. Defender's an example since you had to go off the top to hyperspace, and into the city to smart bomb.
Auto racing is an Intellivision dog. There's no use trying to play it or defend it. Intellivision had a lot of fabulous games, and it had some dogs.
Intellivision was awesome. I could literally play baseball against myself. I controlled the fielders and pitching with my right hand, and the hitting and baserunning with my left.
I learned how to play poker on the intellivision.
So glad that was the console my family bought me.
That's sad. Mattel messed up not having a 1-player option. (Something about the memory?) In 1982 they released ports of their games to Atari under M-Network and also without a 1-player option. If they had then maybe one or more would have sold 1 million. I bought 2 new including Super-Challenge Baseball where the "super-challenge" was to find someone willing to learn the controls.
Having an Intellivision (and still do) when I was younger, with Football, you had to enter the plays in a certain order and you had your favorite ones. I brought it out for Christmas a couple years ago and my cousin remembered his favorite play.
I was there, played with both as a kid and the Intellivision was hands down much, MUCH better. The only think it lacked, were the paddles used for pong like games. With the 2600 i got bored after about 5 minutes of playtime, with almost all games (Enduro and Adventure being a notable exceptions), but many Intellivision games would hookme half an hour or more.
For some weird reason, a few Intellivision games were possible to play with the 2600 using some adapter, most notably that Baseball.
So much talk about the "look" of the controllers, but you seem to have missed the most important thing: Number of buttons. Obviously Mattel was a bit ahead of its time, but a decade later they proved to be right. While the Atari controller has 4 directions and 1 button, the Intellivision had: 16 directions (yes, count them), 2 buttons (replicated in both sides) and the keypad which allowed for a lot of variety in games. Some games were made as simple as Atari games so you didn't need to mess much with the keypad, but in some others they were cleverly used. I could mention Sea Battle, for both keypad use and directions, but that wasn't the only one.
I don't know where you got the specs, but the Intellivision cpu was actually slower (around 500khz), but 16 bit, tho cpu commands used 10 bit so its a bit weird to explain. Your Atari video output is definitely having trouble, it shouldn't be looking like that. Also there were two variants of auto racing that handle the cars a bit different, but the most fun of it was playing two players.
You missed the best Intellivision games. While Atari had Activision (which also had games for Intellivision) the real star for Intellivision was Imagic. To have an Intellivision, without any Imagic games, was the same as owning the Atari without any Activision games.
You want arcade games? Why don't you get Burgertime for both consoles? That's actually a Mattel game. The Nintendo game ports were garbage, and its no wonder. In 1983 they had their "console" out in Japan, with arcade quality game ports, which America would get to know later as "Nes". Sadly Mattel couldn't get the keyboard which the Famicom in Japan had, but was unceremoniously scrapped in its US release. Keyboard meant Basic, which meant "full" computer, one of the arguments of the game crash was personal computers were better.
It was easy to see that the Intellivision is more capable graphically, although I would have much preferred an analog joystick (a good one, not like the one on the Atari 5200) to the 16-direction control disc. Interestingly, the 2600, Atari 400/800, and Commodore computers were all capable of supporting analog joysticks, but it never happened, while the Apple II and IBM PC got analog joysticks.
I really don't think any Intellivision games could be played on the 2600, but there was a 2600 clone from Mattel Electronics themselves called the System Changer that could be plugged into the Intellivision that allowed it to play 2600 games. Like the earlier ColecoVision Expansion Module #1, a licensing fee had to be paid to Atari for the proprietary TIA (clone) chip that is used.
The 2600 controller has 8 directions, actually, plus one button. While Intellivision did end up innovating first with its standard controllers having lots of buttons, this idea as well as the idea of consoles being computers (which Mattel had promised for the Intellivision) had been around. Originally, the Atari 400 was to have been the 2600's successor as a console, and with _Star Raiders_ as its intended "killer app", Atari's intention was to give it controllers with lots of buttons. Then they sort of changed their minds and made the 400 a hybrid console-computer with a full, albeit cheap membrane-type, keyboard, and eventually sold it as a computer next to the 800 (which has a standard mechanical and was always intended to be a computer). With the membrane keyboard effectively providing lots of buttons, they dropped the new controllers (which might have been detached keyboards) and reverted to the 2600 joystick and button. A bit later, the rival console division within Atari decided to repackage the 400 as the 5200 without the keyboard and deliberately made it software-incompatible for some dumb reason, and naturally it was a failure (despite actually being a very capable console--more so than either the Intellivision or the ColecoVision in many ways).
Where Atari was successful (besides the 2600), however, was in making a machine that could be both a really good console and really good 8-bit computer, which the Atari 8-bit computers were. Commodore would soon steal their thunder, though, convincing the public that home/family/personal computers were the way to go, and making their own computers with really good graphics and sound capabilities (especially the Commodore 64) while undercutting Atari in price, selling a lot more units than Atari or anyone else. Sadly, in contrast, Mattel was never able to deliver effectively on their promise to make the Intellivision into a computer (that was as capable as these other computers for a competitive price). The Keyboard Component was a disaster: large, expensive, unreliable, and not all that capable. It didn't even use the Intellivision's CPU, so it was really a separate computer except for electrical power and graphics. It used a 6502 CPU so Mattel could simply license an existing version of MicroSoft BASIC for cheap, but they couldn't get anything else done right. The ECS (Entertainment Computer System) was the backup plan that did reach the market, but hardly got anywhere. It was less expensive and used the Intellivision's CPU, but the version of BASIC written for it was flaky, and it only had 2K of RAM for programming anyway. Mattel shouldn't feel too bad, though. Despite Coleco coming much closer to succeeding with turning their ColecoVision into the Adam computer, that project cost so much and flopped so badly that it took the entire company down with it, while obviously Mattel is still around.
As for the Famicom/NES' computer conversion, called Family BASIC, it was only released in Japan and was fairly successful, although it wasn't much better than the ECS. Users only had 2KB-4KB of memory for BASIC programs.
yes, I had both us a kid too. first the 2600 then the intellivision. The intellivision was hands down my favorite - could have been because of their superior sports games, which I liked best.... my intellivision was actually the intellivision 2 - same system just was smaller and had detacheable game controllers...
I think some of the Mattel programmers went to Imagic, so they knew how to enhance the games. Too bad their 1983 games were largely unwanted; but fathom looked good. Meanwhile, I had to laugh when I saw that all they did was translate Stampede and Pitfall for Intellivision and didn't enhance them for the superior graphics system; guess Activision didn't know how.
Not sure why you had so much trouble using the controller on the intellvision, I still have on from the 80's and can pick plays in football and drive race cars with no issue, glad you made this video but think you may be a bit biased, so many more options with intellvision controller. And I still own both systems and enjoy going back in time with them.
I enjoyed playing Auto Racing at a store while my parents were next door shopping. I had no problem figuring out how to maneuver the car with the controller, despite never playing it before.
The Atari was designed to run Pong and Combat, that's pretty much it. When you look at the Atari's better games, it's amazing the developers could make it happen at all (considering the Intellivision had125X more RAM). Oh, by the way, Mattel released M Network baseball for the 2600; it looked, played and sounded just like the Intellivision version. I played the heck out of that game.
I got M-Network baseball and loved it, but not having AI limited time spent; same with Armor Ambush.
Atari's first 9 games from 1977 (using 2K carts, I think): Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Combat, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, Video Olympics. I had Combat and Surround which was retired and was sad they didn't bring it back for Tron, as the arcade had the gameplay with cycles. I got Indy 500 years later (sadly there was no part 2, or Tempest port to use the controller).
And heck just look at what the homebrew community and the denoscene is getting the 2600 to do. Heck just look at the latest video from zeropage homebrew showing a first person "3d" demo, and a pretty impressive RPG
In 1980 I played both systems extensively before deciding to go with Intellivision. The arcade style games were pretty similar in simplicity, but the available games with complexity and detail like Sub Hunt and Auto Racing were well beyond anything available for Atari.
The comparison between the baseball games in this video pretty much sums it up, generally. I eventually acquired the Atari but seldom played it. The Intellivision was put through the paces with two and now three generations and is still in working order today. BTW, the guy in this video just didn't know how to manipulate Auto Racing - gotta brain invert for that one -
Just as Odyssey² gave a better experience with most sports games than Atari did in 1978, so too did the Intellivision.
OMG, we had the Intellivision system. Great time to be a kid!! Loved the games sooo much more than our cousin's Atari (I believe it was the graphics and appearance of the games). Space Hawk, Space Armada, Bomb Squad, Stampede (Activision), and of course Boxing, Football, Baseball - the list of games we enjoyed goes on and on. Our father used to play Poker and Blackjack all the time - Lol (bringing back great memories). Hours and hours of fun, fun, fun! 💜 (Hmmmm...I wonder if I can fix the old console!?!)
Intellivision!!!!!
My father was on the Play Cable design team, which provided games that downloaded over the cable system to Intellivision! This was WAY ahead of its time. Anyway, the engineers made tape drive systems to put all the games on tapes, so we had just about every available game. That was one thing that got me started with electronics as a kid. I was amazed at those tape drives and the whole system. The Intellivision was for people that were more intelligent. You mentioned about “anyone can walk up and play it”. Well, that’s nice for an 8 year old, but games like Utopia and Snafu were thinking games. By the way, in one part of the video, you didn’t have the overlay all the way in. Plus, there are finger holes on the sides of the cartridge holder, but you struggled to pull it out the wrong way. Mattel even did a better job at packaging. They were a class act. The hardware was based on chips from General Instrument; even the processor. I can say now as an engineer that the design of the Intellivision was vastly superior, but the controllers you seem to despise were much better as a user interface than the dumb Atari joystick. If you’re beyond basic, the Intellivision is likely more your style than the pong-ish Atari.
It's easier to learn how to master controls as a pre-teen (like I was when I was playing both these consoles), than when you have been a grown man for many years. This is probably why you aren't fond of the disk.
My stepfather used to kibitz while we tried to play Lemmings on SNES. Getting the control to engage at the precise moment was easier said then done. I think I gave up on it.
That commercial in the beginning had me. I remember some of those commercials. Just haven't thought about them since then.
Atari Joysticks were functionally good, but they were FRAGILE! We went through 3 or 4 of 'em, and that was just one person playing it for the most part. The plastic "ring" inside them would eventually break after a while. The INTV discs were a little awkward, but they never broke!
I asked Mom this week if she remembered buying Atari console and cartridges for me and she said she only remembered me breaking "lots" of joysticks that my grandfather had to repair (it was one or two).
Yeahh right and what about the graphics and the intellivoice there is no point of comparison my friend intellivision was totally the best console on those days, even after Atari release the 5600, once you get use to the controller you will notice that it was best on those days
This video's a bit of a shit-show. I watched it two years ago, and changed to thumbs-down. He picked the games made for 2600 that had least enhancement when doing an Intellivision port. I learned this week that Atari was going to use the 6502 processor, which Intellivision, VIC-20 and others used, but made a deal to get a cheaper, modified chip, called the 6507, thus sabotaging their own system for its 1977 release.
Dude, you lost me at the controller comparison. "9 times out of ten" the overlay was just numbers that didn't tell you anything?!?! Complete BS right there! Sure, if the button wasn't needed, but 9 times out of ten the overlays included icons that showed the function of the button! They were numbered too, often times, but you're just talking out of your butt, lol. And if you can't switch directions quickly with the directional disc then that seems like a physical limitation you have, not the controller. It was never a problem for me as a kid. The directional disc is the predecessor to every controller that exists today!
Try being left handed and playing an Atari. It's far and away more difficult to do that than to use an Intellivision controller. And Intellivision built their system for left AND right handed players! You lose, and you're just wrong about almost everything here. Atari was fine, Intellivision was superior in every single way.
I vividly recall people not being able to figure out the Atari joystick. Seriously! They would try it upside down or sideways or left handed!
"Let's start with Dragster" said no one ever... until now.
the intellevision controller was PERFECT, more like a gaming keyword+mouse. And I was a master in Auto-racing. u need to start with slow car.. and use the controller as a steering wheel
, at the begining u can turn the controller in the direction of the car until u are able tu automate the turn in reverse way when car is going down
The 2600 controller was an absolute nightmare that greatly limited games and made for terribly imprecise control. The Intellivision controller could be uncomfortable if the side buttons were stiff, but otherwise it was a huge step up. It was twice as precise, with 16 directions instead of 8, and games regularly took advantage of the many buttons.
I never had any trouble with the buttons whatsoever, I might get a sore thumb off the directional circle if I was playing an intense game for hours though. No biggie...
Uhm, you're wrong! I think the 2600's controller is great! BUT, I still think the 7800's joystick is the best joystick for home systems, as it's got 2 buttons and is really simple, unlike the nightmarish disk on the INTV and the buttons that most didn't even need.
@@ecernosoft3096 Games regularly made use of the buttons on the Intellivision controller. I had about 30 games for that system. They often came with overlays for the controller than showed what each key did. I owned an Atari 7800, and there's no question that the flexibility of the Intellivision controller had big advantages. There is a reason that modern game systems have expanded beyond 1 or 2 buttons and have added more than 8 directions. The NES had 4 buttons. The SNES had 8. Modern controllers have 10 with 2 analog sticks and a directional pad that can be used for additional button type input. PC games designed for keyboard and mouse go even further.
I have to wonder how many good games might have been made if they released a joystick with two or more buttons? And only Indy 500 used the steering controller so we never got Tempest port.
Also a true trackball controller that works like a mouse for Missile Command. They programmed the computer versions with a trackball in mind, but not the 2600.
Games had these things called manuals ! You read them cover to cover and then again and kept referring to them when playing ! That’s how real old school was done ! Pick up and play !?! No that’s arcade games , not intelivision ! Atari yes , this is why intelivision was different, it required a little more thought to play the games . Like bomb squad or b17 bomber . Intellivsion was the best in the day, ATARI was rubbish !
B 17 Bomber WAS awesome! You truly had to be multifaceted in employing sounds strategy, fighting ability, fuel management, and good aim in bomb release. That it effectively recreated world war II gave you an even greater satisfaction, in that you were destroying the Nazis, maybe the ultimate bad guys.
The Intellivsion controller made you keep looking at the controller to know what to do. If you have to do that for a controller, the controller failed its only purpose.
@@tempatchtheveryweird3665 A controller that has one purpose is one that has a single control. An Intellivision controller has fifteen controls. You read that right, FIFTEEN. Plus another another eight directions that VCS never heard of. So it didn't fail "its only purpose." I'll admit that it could have been better, what can't? And the Xbox style controllers now popular may offer some advantages in the "no look" department. On the other hand, this was forty years ago and you know what? I bet those Xbox controller still don't have fifteen functions????? Perfect: maybe not. Totally awesome: Definitely. If the controller were a fail you wouldn't have me here saying its not. That Intellivision has so many rabid believers shows the controller is not a problem. YOU are the person that can't play.
There are PLENTY of Atari games that need the manual. Not my kind of games but I could name quite a few from ET to Basic Programming. Plus the average cart had a dozen or more variation channels that werent always self explanatory. Especially the older ones. Even simple arcade games can use the manual, I read them online before playing.. Asteroids has 60 game types alone.
I like that your wall matches the setting of these games!
I remember playing nfl football for intellivision with my dad. Once you figure out how to set the plays its fun
Football code 9224, I still remember it. Pass about 7 yards to top sideline.
I can sense bias but I don’t mind Atari is pretty good.
I grew up with the Intellivision, but always envied the Atari because of all the games they had, but hadn't played one. It wasn't until I finally went to friends house and played their 2600 , that I realized that the Intellivison was much better. The controller was not great, but still better than the Atari. I have no idea how he had so much problem using one, my family all did fine with it when we were kids. The only win I would give the Atari is in popularity and number of games and high profile games. I didn't know any other kids with an Intellivision growing up and felt left out of some of the playground discussions about games because they weren't available on my system. But after comparing them I never felt bad about it again, I always felt that the gaming experience was better on Intellivision.
After Asteroids, I felt bad because all the games in ads looked bad on the Atari. I knew their 1978 sports games weren't as good, too. But there were a couple years when playing Missile Command, Space Invaders and others felt good.
While the atari controller was definitely easier to use and more of a pick-up-and-play, the single button was a serious hindrance to better games. When porting certain arcade games, the 2600 version would often have to be significantly modified to deal with a 1-button limitation. I remember being disappointed that Missile Command only had 1 missile base but there was no other choice given the single button. I loved my 2600 and my 400/800 computers. They all used the same joystick controller. But it would've been better if even a 2nd button was added. The Intellivision controller was not great either for entirely different reasons. But it was definitely more flexible.
Atari could have done that if they wanted to, either in it's release in 1977 or any year later, like with the release of Defender (not a good port) but didn't bother.
I read the Commodore computers could have added capability to read a second joystick button if they wanted to, but they didn't bother. Dumb.
Oh, and also Masters of the Universe was on the Atari 2600 as well.
And Donkey Kong on 2600 isn't a stick figure-- he's a thicc figure.
I thoroughly enjoyed all of the games on my Intellivision! I never had a problem with the game pad. Other than the number buttons wearing out and getting really hard to press after a while. My Atari owning friends always came to my house to play baseball on the Intellivision.
Glad to hear it. No one in my neighborhood in 1980-1 had Intellivision. I counted 4 Ataris and 1 Odyssey².
@@sandal_thong8631 I agree everyone I knew and I was 10 in 79 when Intellivision was released I had Atari heavy sixer in 77 and in 1980 it was 10-1 everyone had an Atari there were more games and to me better because of the controller and in 81 heard about the Colecovision coming out soon and I knew that was my next console
Maybe they add the numbers to make programming a tad easier.
To call an offensive play for the Intellivision football game requires a 4 digit number. Like 9323 and then you hit enter. And to call a defensive play you just enter a number between 1-9 and then press enter. I played that game for hours and hours at a time.
Donkey Kong on the 2600 looks like the Ginger Bread Man.
Your wrong on the controller for Intv. I am a one handed gamer due to disability and the Intv is the only controller I can use.
Now I have the music to NES Bases Loaded in my head.
Corby Ziesman It is catchy 😁
Coleco handled the 2600 and Intellivision ports of Donkey Kong themselves as they had the license from Nintendo to produce the home version and they intentionally made them inferior to make their own ColecoVision port look that much better. Nothing could stop them from doing so back then and it worked to their advantage superbly. Personally, I had a ColecoVision and it's still my preferred console from that generation. The other two have their strong points, of course, and I enjoy using them depending on the games in question. The Intellivision has a really good port of BurgerTime and the VCS has a very smooth running version of GORF. And the Atari adapters exist for the other two machines because the VCS uses all off-the-shelf parts, nothing inside it was their own proprietary creation. Totally legal.
I think that's a myth about Donkey Kong (which sold 4 million+) and other games, as ColecoVision only sold 2 million consoles and once you got a game you weren't going to buy it again on another system (unless you were a fanatic or weird). You'd think Intellivision would have liked to have an M-Network game sell 1 million copies, but not enough to create an A.I. for 1-player games, so they just did a translation. Their best for Intellivison was MLB Baseball which sold 900,000.
I remember being driven crazy trying to figure out that Intellivision football game!
Intellivision was ahead of its time. If the Atari controllers are as good as you say, why don't all game consoles today have joysticks? Seems the D-pad is what every console has had for the 20+ years since the Intellivision came out. Maybe that's because it's better?
Intellivision didn't have a D-pad it had the disc of crap
Why did you put background music from Super Tecmo Bowl during the Atari Football games demonstration?
Intellivision design is Better Atari is not better looking or better designed, just because something is a legend does not make it better looking and designed than any other system, The Atari does not look better and is not better designed then today's current gen systems.
Intellivision controllers are Not Hard to use once you use them for a few minutes.
I hate people that bash the Intellivision controllers.
I grew up with the Intellivision II, i think it had a much better and compact design than the original (and critical for playing Microsurgeon alone). From my point of view the Atari looks ugly, one if its variants (without the fake wood) was called Darth Vader for a reason... There is also the "80ies" look with some shiny metal and rainbow stripe. But most importantly its deceiving, you open the Atari and its mostly empty inside, wasting a lot of space for no particular reason.
Growing up, I had the Atari and my friend had the Intellivision. It's safe to say that we both had reason to be jealous of each other's consoles. The Atari had all the licensed arcade games and majored in fast-action "twitch" gameplay. The Intellivision majored in slightly deeper games, like sports and strategy. Main mistake they made with the Intellivision, I think, was wiring the controllers to the console, meaning there was no way they could release other controllers, like an arcade stick, or paddle, and you couldn't easily replace them if your dad trod on one.
One of the best things about the Atari is that its joystick is absolutely generic, so you could easily plug in alternate joysticks - or even a Sega Megadrive (a.k.a. Genesis) pad. To be honest, when I play Atari these days it's the Megadrive pad that I use - it's so much more comfortable to use than the original joystick.
Try comparing Atari Defender II (Stargate) to Masters of the Universe. Defender II blew my MIND back in the day. One of the games on Atari that seemed quite literally IMPOSSIBLE, that it was that good.
Oh, and Enduro truly ROCKED.
Great vid. Tons of fun. Make many more! THX 😃
Colecovision enters: Hold my joystick.
Atari! But I will say that BurgerTime on Intellivision is much better than same game on 2600.
This was my first video game.
There, now you know.
Yeah, that adapter for the Colecovision to allow 2600 games to be played on it originally caused Atari to sue Coleco. In the end, Coleco won, because Coleco showed that they simply reverse-engineered the Atari chip technology, which was completely valid and legal.
When reviewing the controllers at the beginning I would have also shown the paddle controllers for the 2600.
Having had these simultaneously when growing up, the Intellivision was my favourite. Yes, the controller wasn't great for some games, but it was pretty decent for others. Games that took advantage of the extra buttons were a treat. It was the games that were ports of regular joystick games that didn't feel good on the Intellivision, but thankfully the Intellivision had a lot of more unusual games in its library that benefited from the extra buttons. Those games simply would not be possible on the Atari. In terms of my personal ranking, the Atari is the nostalgic pick, but the Intellivision is the overall winner. PvP sports or driving games on it were unbeatable for the time.
The controller was the only negative short of limited 3rd-party games made for them. If they'd used a joystick w/buttons and keypad like the 5200, that could have worked. I'm thinking Intellivision's were also built in and hard to replace or repair?
Great overview. I’ve never had my hands on an intellivision. But would love to get one someday.
If you're into collecting its a good system to have. Although I'm not sure where I'd rank it as a priority.
The intellivision controller is the quickest and most precise ever BUT you have to understand that left hand is for grasping it and side buttons and right hand for disc. For Tron : Deadly Disks you have to switch hands: your right will activate the weapon with the keyboard and the left will direct your character. Plenty enough of people have scored giga high scores in intellivision games without finishing in a tree every 10 seconds like in your video. The Atari controller is one of the worst nightmares ever seen, toped only by the one of a "Philips Videopack" console. Needless to say more. / Edited to add : Forgot to say that only tourists would keep the overlay whilst playing...
I actually have both the Atari Video Computer System and Intellivision, including the Colecovision.
I had an Intellivision when I was a young kid, and I had no problems with the controller.
My brother n law had intellivision and we would play all the sport games which were miles ahead of atari. Intellivision was better in every way. Intellivision's controller allowed for more complex games like Utopia and many other. Atari only had the stick and button which held back more complex gameplay. I always like Intellivision better.
I grew up on NES clones, and I firmly have to say that as a child I would rather have an Intellivision than an Atari.
Depends what you want to do with it. If you have someone to play with then MLB Baseball, NFL Football, and Auto Racing would be fun. If you don't then you'll have more fun playing Atari Space Invaders, Missile Command and Asteroids, not counting arcade games that came out in 1982-3 like Berzerk, Moon Patrol, Ms. Pac-Man, etc.
Lock and chase on intellivision my favourite. Also hockey was awesome too
Sort of the Nutshell: I don't know how to play Intellivision games, so Atari is better.
Instruction books are marvelous and wonderful things...
Both machines were awesome in their own way. Space Battle, Advanced D&D, Burgertime, and Tron Deadly Discs were my “killer apps”, and I bought a Sears Intellivision (Super Video Arcade) with my own money as a kid. I also had the 2600, and preferred its Donkey Kong port. Intellivision Defender and Pac Man are REALLY GOOD, and certainly superior to their 2600 counterparts.
Subtle movement of the disc controller and braking before turns is key to playing Auto Racing well.
Anyone know what the track used at 19:43 is? Heard it elsewhere but don't know what game it's from.
I'm glad you didn't compare Intellivision's Turbo to Atari's Enduro. That would have been an embarrassment. As for Auto Racing, you have to touch "left" or "right" on the directional disc to steer the car left or right. In 1980, nobody seemed to understand that.
Turbo was my favorite auto-racing game in the arcade for awhile, but wasn't on the Atari. I guess Intellivision got it or licensed it exclusively?
My only experience playing Intellivision was playing Auto Racing for an hour in the store, and I figured it out.
I get a kick out of the common complaint that you need two hands to use an Intellivision controller. Let's see you use an Atari joystick one-handed.
Well when you consider the VCS/2600 was never originally meant to have the games it did (it was only meant for games like tank and pong) it's actually pretty impressive what people back in the day did with it and the homebrew and demoscene is currently doing with the 2600.
Of course the intellivision has the better hardware, and more capable in every way, and better games if the devs put time and effort into said game. I had both and enjoyed playing both. The VCS/2600 will always have a soft spot in my heart as it was my first game console as a kid, I can't slam it like many other are doing.
How come no space games comparison?
I understand about the Intellivision controller. For me it was simply uncomfortable to use rather than awkward. But due to the console's better games I was willing to look past it.
Yeah, every time I played it the disc made my thumbs sore, and the buttons on the sides of the controller wasn't too comfortable either, it just made my hand cramp up.
I modified the controller to have a joystick which made it more comfortable to use.
It was incredible that they recreated the theme back then.
Intellivision always had better looking games than the Atari 2600. I remember being amazed by the running man animation (in some of the games) and all the Tron games.
I just looked up 3 and found one that talks! Weird games though, and I don't see a port of the Arcade, which I liked though didn't play much.
Only thing that sucked about the Intellivision is all my friends had Atari so I couldn't trade games.
The original 2600 controller (you don't have one in this video) is extremely good and MUCH better made than the one you have. I have 2 of them and they are so much easier on your hands. Basically there are fairly heavy springs on the inside and a metal Atari logo on the top of the stick, which none of them have anymore. They only exist on the original made in California Atari VCS.
They had to replace it a year later because a lot of them broke.
@@sandal_thong8631 The one I use is 40 years old with a lot of use just by me. They were MUCH, MUCH better made than the ones that came later.
They switched to the later CX40 (the one everyone knows) because it was a lot cheaper to make.
*Good Video, Bro*
my dad and i had some epic football games on intellivision. EPIC
StarStrike and AutoRacer were my favourites. I got really good with that disc in Autoracer
To me, the Intellivision was superfluous. Most of the games on offer looked like slightly nicer looking versions of games that I already owned for the Atari which was still holding its own just fine.
I had both. No comparison, the Intellivision was MUCH better.
But if a controller broke,you had to send the intellivision back to the factory,with Atari,you bought a new controller.
Mattel remedied that with the Intellivision II - detachable controllers. But yea, you have a point. The Intv II controllers felt a bit cheaper and were more painful to play on which put the final nail in the coffin for that system.
@@Meebzorp5200 the controls for intellevision (1 &2) never felt comfortable to me.the Atari controllers could hurt your hands after an hour or so,but u could get alternate controllers,so that helped for sure.
I really like the Intellivision and think it has a fantastic library but I can't get past that controller. It literally hurts my hand the way I have to hold it. I hear there's a modern controller that someone on Atariage is selling but it's pretty pricey
Fully agree with you. I had access to both back in the day, and way preferred the 2600...
Cool video thank you !
Intellivision sports games were the best. Only downside was that they were 2 player only. I had epic games against my brothers. Mostly with football, hockey, and soccer
Once I saw the title of this video, I immediately thought, "It all comes down to the controllers."
Intellivision would probably be rated much higher in this regard, although between the sentiment, gameplay, and the vast library of cartridges from multiple companies - the Atari 2600 is my preferred system, overall.
I did, however, enjoy the D&D games, Baseball, Utopia, and various Imagic releases for the Intellivision - which I never owned until getting the flashback version a few years ago, which I recommend.
With that said, there were add on joystick accessories to convert the disc controllers, though I didn't know anyone who had them.
And, considering that this comparative review was to present the systems without any enhancing accessories, it kept it straight forward.
Thanks for the video!
My Brother and I played Intellivision football so much...great game. Downhill skiing was another good one. If you wanted to play decent sports game at the time, Intellivision blew Atari out of the water, in graphics and game play.
I like how he says that he is not going to compare the system hardware technology-wise and then immediately starts comparing the hardware technology-wise.