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Better then owning an Intellivision.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I never owned this system as a kid and to be honest I'm glad, But I'm also glad to have a descent collection of video games for about 6 bucks. So in theory I could say that I currently own an Intellivision System and most of its top games.....

Nice Retro games with horrible controls

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Here is the games list, since I couldn't find it anywhere else. Like others I found a good portion of them unplayable thanks to the control interface.

Armor Battle
Astrosmash
Auto Racing
B-17 Bombing
Backgammon
Baseball
Basketball
Battle Tanks
Biplanes
Body Slam: Super Pro Wrestling
Bomb Squad
Bowling
Boxing
Brickout
Buzz Bombers
Checkers
Chip Shot: Super Pro Golf
Crosswords
Deep Pockets: Pool & Billiards
Demo Cartridge
Factor Fun
Football
Frog Bog
Golf
Hard Hat
Hockey
Horseracing
Hover Force
Hypnotic Lights
Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack
Las Vegas Roulette
Magic Carousel
Math Master
Memory Fun
Motocross
Mountain Madness: Super Pro Skiing
Night Stalker
Pinball
Racing Cars
Reversi
Royal Dealer
Sea Battle
Shark! Shark!
Sharp Shot
Skiing
Slam Dunk: Super Pro Basketball
Slap Shot: Super Pro Hockey
SNAFU
Soccer
Space Armada
Space Battle
Space Hawk
Space Spartans
Spiker: Super Pro Volleyball
Stadium Mudbuggies
Star Strike
Sub Hunt
Super Pro Decathalon
Super Pro Football
Tennis
Thin Ice
Thunder Castle
Tower of Doom
Utopia
Vectron
Word Hunt
Word Rockets
World Championship Baseball

Would've got 5 stars BUT.........

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

it makes my Playstation 2 sound like its dying.
Whenever I play this game, my system's fan speeds up as fast as possible & it keeps stuttering.
Not sure what the problem is. I'm afraid to play it too long b/c I don't want it to break my system.

Other than that, the game is great. Except for a few games that require two players, everything else is fine.

My all time favorites SNAFU & Shark Shark are present (gotta love the Snafu soundtrack). Even Utopia is on this game. My brother's favorite, Astrosmash has to be mentioned also.

Even though I love these games, I'd say to only rent the game. Unless I bought a lemon, your system will hate you for making it play the game...

An Intellivision Fan

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome it brought back to me full memories when i was a kid and i had my own intellivision II. The only thing hard to learn it's the mapping of the Intellivision controller to the ps2 controller but once solved that little obstacle the game brings tons of fun. If you were a really fan of this console in the 80's you won't be dessapointed.

Better off renting it

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

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I got this awhile ago, with a different case. Now it's got a different case, so I figured that the flaws were fixed ... Not at all.
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The game selection is retarded. A no-frills menu of the games is all I need, not some clunky ordeal. The concept of the background music must have looked great on paper, but is simply annoying. I know, music taste is subjective, but I'm talking about the way songs are selected. Plus, there are volume options for sound effects and "intellivision", but what's the difference? Cause only the option for sound effects works. And finally, everyone's favorite axe to grind: the controller. Yeah, hate to rain on everyone's parade, but the concept is annoying and should be optional. It's the Playstation 2, not the original Intellivision console, with its flimsy, crackly sounding keypad. Hmm, I know! Make L1,L2,R1,R2,L3,R3 and any three of the shape buttons the pad! Then you have a fire button and select/start left. Besides, very few of the games actually use all the "original" keypad. This museum was rushed, and it shows.
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In all honesty and fairness, this museum wasn't meant to be an update, and as mentioned, there are key titles missing. But the manufacturer can't get all the licenses, so they did the best they could. The console + 60 games was over 1000 dollars in the eighties, and at that point, you could get them at retail stores. Now you're lucky if you can get a decent console with working pads, and the good titles are hard to find. (I imagine the total price is over a grand, but a bargain hunter could get it all for a few hundred) So it's easy for me to shoot the messenger, but I am glad I have these games. But because of the aforementioned issues, I use this museum once a year, and may never use it again.
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If you're curious about this museum, rent it. If it's not available, buy it used. I guarantee you'll be trading it soon ...

IMHO Controller 'problem' is not hard to deal with...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this about 3 weeks ago and have been having loads of fun with it. I am a vet'ran video gamer back from the late 70's/early 80's when Atari and Intellivision were the only (home) games in town. I can say that the PS2 port of the majority of the good Intellivision games is not bad.
I don't agree that there is a problem with the controls. More specifically, the PS2 controller imitation of the INT controller is pretty accurate. I was a big fan of Atari BECAUSE the INT controller was a real pain (mental and physical) to deal with. But you can overcome this.

The secret???

MEMORIZE THE OVERLAY and use the right thumb stick and R1 button.

Yep, it takes some of your time and brain power to do it, but once you do, I claim that the PS2 controller is EASIER to use than the original INT controller. Seriously give it a try! You can make keypad selections without having to look down at the controller. I remember that back in '81 you gould get serious neck strain from continually looking back from screen to controller to screen to hit those keypad/overlay buttons. The better players actually memorized the overlay and did not insert it because it made it difficult to find the buttons by feel. The older INT controllers had raised buttons. Also with the PS2 controller the old 'bleeding fingers' problem from the INT controller is eliminated. The side buttons on the INT controllers caused cuts and blisters when used correctly :)

I give the package a 5 because I love it but there are flaws - some of them in the ORIGINAL games and some in the PS2 release...

Flaw - generally poor instructions for the more complicated games - Example: UTOPIA is an AWESOME game if you know how the pieces interact with each other ...but none of this is explained in the instructions. Another example: In Sea Battle, you win the game immediately by sailing either your AIRCRAFT CARRIER or your TROOP TRANSPORT into the other player's harbor - this fact is not mentioned in the instructions, all they say is "sail your ships" into the other player's harbor (at one point I did know this but I had to re-learn by trial and error). I haven't scoured all of the instructions but I have to imagine that omission errors like this are rampant.

Ah, another point - You HAVE to read the instructions for almost every game or you will not have much fun. Sure, there are exceptions - Astrosmash, Space Armada and others - but usually you need some critical piece of info in the instructions to be able to win. I can't imagine anyone winning a game of Space Battle without knowing what the controls all do.

Also, it is important to realize that Intellivision games in many cases were not originally conceived to be extremely reflex-oriented like the huge majority of the Atari games. This fact and the funky controller along with the higher price tag shunted people towards the Atari. I remember that well enough.

Overall I was very, very pleased! For around 20 bucks it's like getting an Intellivision console with 64 carts! Woulda cost around 16 or 17 hundred bucks in the 80's!

Oh, I did notice that the Armor Battle game crashes (my guess) about 60% of the time. I don't know if it is an original flaw or a problem with the port. So far I have tried all the games an average of at least 3 times (several many, many more than 3) and this is the only consistent crash problem I had.

Mixed feelings about this release

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

When I was young I had an Intellivision with at least 35+ games in the household (both my brother and myself would buy games for it). My impression of this PS2 adaptation of the old Intellivision games is that although they have done a great job of reproducing the exact visual look and feel of the Intellivision games - at least the ones I was familiar with, they failed horribly at making a PS2 controller act like an Intellivision controller.

Intellivision had a unique controller, with the sixteen direction touch disk, the front surface buttons and the four side buttons (if I'm remembering correctly). Plus, they had those little slide in plastic pieces. Playing Utopia, or B-17 bomber, or any game for that matter which relied on lots of the old Intellivision hand held controller buttons were a pain in the neck to play on the PS2 because the people who made this "Intellivision Lives!" release couldn't overcome the big differences between a PS2 controller and the old Intellivision controller. Simpler games like Astrosmash or Night Stalker that only used a couple of buttons translated to the PS2 controller okay.

Beyond that, another peeve I had was that some of two-player games appeared to REQUIRE a second PS2 controller before they would start up. I only had one PS2 controller and although yes, a second PS2 controller would have been needed to enjoy the two player aspects of the games, I would have at least liked to be able to see the games again but without the second controller.

It was fun seeing the games again. A big shock was realizing just how far we have come. Just prior to getting this title I had finished up Grand Theft Auto San Andreas - and going back to Intellivision games was a shocker.

Almost As I Remembered! :)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Since my parents knew someone who worked at Mattel, our family was allowed to purchase our Intellivision long before most other people did. After receiving a couple of beta-test systems that would crash way too often, we finally got a final-release system in 1980.

Over the next 3 years, our cartridge collection would grow to about 40 games. :)

"Intellivision Lives" almost accurately recalls those days of my youth! The first thing I did upon slipping the DVD-ROM into my PS2 was fire up Astrosmash, and I proceeded to get a new personal best score!

For the simpler games, the ergonomical design of the dualshock controller comes in very handy, however, the games that used the numeric keypad extensively were a little rougher to control, but even with a keypad-intensive game like Baseball, I eventually worked my way around the diamond via the right analog stick & R1 like it was second nature :) The keypad shortcuts via the analog stick take some getting used to, but eventually you *will* get used to it :)

Playing these games again makes this old-school gamer-girl's heart soar, and if you were a previous Intellivision owner (or a current one, I know there are some of you that still exist ;) ) it will do the same for you.

Classic Intellivision gameplay on a new console!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: December 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Many of the reviewers have given this bad reviews because it lacks some of the more popular titles, such as the AD&D games (Treasure of Tarmin, Cloudy Mountain), and the TRON titles (3 were released for the original Intellivision). The fact is that the Intellivision group does NOT own the copyrights to these games anymore, thus, the reason they are missing. Overall, a huge collection of Intellivision games on one disc; most of the games are playable on the Playstation 2 controller (and there are some "workarounds", such as using the right analog stick or pressing the "select" button to bring up the original Intellivision keypad). Some games are still frustrating because of the original versions dependence on the original Intellivision controller, such as Major League Baseball, but overall I would recommend this collection, both for its faithful adaption of the original games ported to a current generation game console, and for the sheer number of games present. It is also nice to play some demo and playable versions of never-released games. There are plenty of younger kid friendly games on this disc, too, such as Frog Bog, Word Fun, Math Fun, Pinball, etc. Some elusive game titles are now playable for the first time for me, and I am an original Intellivision owner that still has over 50+ games, the Intellivoice, etc. Also note: the reason that there are not any Imagic third party titles is because Activision owns the Imagic game library (Activision bought the rights when Imagic folded in the mid-1980s). If you want a few of these titles, I would recommend the PS2 Activision Classics game.

Intellivision does not live!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: September 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Being a kid in the heyday of Intellivision and its Intellivoice add on I was revved up to get all my favorite "old school" Intellivision games on one disk....taht was until I tried to play it...almost all of the games do not work with the playstation controller...do they really expect you to pause the game try to figure out the keypad with a corresponding move then un pause and try to do whatever move you wanted to do in the first place...Do not buy this game...Also they should have put the Tron games on it anyway....the only game worth playing on this disk is Astrosmash and thats a no brainer...just move and shoot....The should have let it die instead of ruin its legacy

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