Intellivision Lives! Review
| Developer: Realtime Associates | Publisher: Crave Entertainment |
| Release Date: November 18, 2003 | Also On: GCN, PC, PS2, and Xbox |
Intellivision Lives! is a collection of over 60 Intellivision games in their original form, including never before released titles. For $20, this bargain-title is worth purchasing whether you owned an Intellivision in the 80’s or if you are a new gamer looking for classic games to play. Intellivision Lives! comes packed with interviews, commercials, the “History of Intellivision� video, and of course the games themselves.
Intellivision Lives! takes place in a 360-degree, 3D pizza parlor, called Hal’s Pizza. This is where you will find arcade machines, a jukebox, and pictures (interviews). Arcade machines line the walls of Hal’s Pizza, each with a different theme, including arcade, gaming (as in gambling), sports, space, etc. The arcade machines play as an interface to the original games and organize them in specific categories (that I just highlighted).
If you become tiresome of playing the huge number of games, there are some production notes for each game, along with the box art, thanks to Keith Robinson, who we interviewed not too long ago. As I said earlier, you can also view some videos and listen to music with the jukebox in the parlor. There are a total of 8 soundtracks, the best of which is “My Intellivision�.
Intellivision Lives! puts a cool twist on each game in these categories, by offering “radical game play� modes, which allow you to play games upside down, reverse, ping-pong (screen bounces back and forth and makes you sick), etc. Now I will go into the actual games that Intellivision Lives! includes in detail:
Shark! Shark! is the ultimate game of survival or in other words, a food-chain game. You try to “level-up� your fish by eating fish smaller than you or ones that are your same size. You must avoid larger predators, such as sharks, to stay alive. By hitting the shark on his tail, you can kill him, depending on what level you are on, it will take more hits.
In this title, you play as a “line� that leaves a trail behind itself. It was actually originally going to be called Ssssnakes!, but that title was dropped, so our “line� is actually a snake and our “trail� is actually a tail. Playing as the snake, you move around a square screen. Your goal is to block off your opponents with your tail; if you hit a tail or the border around the screen, you die and your trail disappears (at least in solo-mode). The computer tends to make a lot of blunders, even a young child can perform better than the computer. The main problem is actually controlling your snake; the controls are sensitive, but sometimes react late. You are allowed to select the number of players, along with how many rounds you play. The person with the most points at the end of the set number of rounds wins; 2nd place (of 4 players) wins two points after one match and 1st place wins three points.
In Thin Ice, you play as a penguin named Duncan who seems to be anti-social. Your goal is to dunk other penguins into the pond by weakening the ice around them. Duncan leaves a trail behind him as he skates, which is weakened ice. If you make a complete circle and/or oval around the penguins, you can break the ice, sending them into the cold water. However, you will encounter seals and polar bears, who will try to throw you into the water or off of the ice.
Astrosmash was originally designed to be a clone of Atari’s Asteroids, but due to the fact that a lawsuit might arise, John Sohl, the developer of the game, decided to go along the route of a “falling-rocks� design. In fact, it ended up becoming one of the most popular Intellivision games, selling over one million cartridges within two years.
In Astrosmash, you play as a “laser gun� that must destroy objects before they hit the ground. Objects include rocks, spinners, and satellites, all of which come at you at different speeds. You can also select a game speed at the game’s start, which is recommended, since the default is fast. Simply press X to fire or O to auto-fire and you are ready to go, start destroying space objects. By pressing triangle, you go into “hyperspace� which randomly places you at another point on the board.
After playing through a couple dozen games from Intellivision Lives!, I have come to the conclusion that the golden age of gaming was truly in the 1980’s. Even though I only covered four titles, there are a ton of other titles that I enjoyed, including Night Stalker, Skiing, Racing Cars, and more. If you are a true gamer, Intellivision Lives! is a must-have; relive gaming history on today’s most powerful machines.
| Graphics: | 7.5 |
| Sound: | 6 |
| Gameplay: | 9 |
| Creativity: | 8 |
| Replay Value/Game Length: | 9.5 |
| Final: | 8.5/10 |
| Written by Kyle | Review Guide |
