After taking a look at the Mattel Intellivision last week, it seems only fitting to move on to the Intellivoice add on which allowed the console to introduce synthesized voices to the video game world.
+RetroReplay So my dad had originally told the voice casting agent he wanted a Lauren Bacall-type voice for the computer voice, lower register and sultry. Then he heard Keri on The Wave, a SoCal radio station, and told the agent he really liked her voice and the agent happened to know her and brought her in to record. But my point is, Dad told her to sound like she was hitting on the spaceship pilot, so you're totally right to think it's sexy! 😋 (My dad is Ron Carlson, which I mentioned in another comment, but it bears repeating for context here.)
Another fun little tibid that only like 5 people know is that the voice actor who does the "Mattel Electronics" intro on all the games had just finished doing the monkeys for Raiders of the Lost Ark the week before because the monkeys on set were so loud that none of the audio from the takes were usable so he came in and made their sounds in ADR and he was cracking up my dad and the team making the monkey noises and whatnot. His name is Frank Welker, he went on to be the voice of Totoro (in the English dub) and several other Studio Ghibli films, in several My Little Pony's and Alvin & the Chipmunks, the Footstool in Beauty & the Beast, and Abu and the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin. The more you know! 💫
Why would you start with white noise like that? RIP headphone users. The use of a frame is ok, but why is it flickering like crazy? It's giving me a headache.
13:33 B-17 BOMBER! Oh man this was one of the first video games I played in the mid 80s. My uncle owned one. But there was something about that voice that creeped me out as a kid and I never wanted to be alone playing it.
Genuinely some really impressive games for the era. It's a shame Mattel fumbled their console and computer endeavors so thoroughly otherwise, and voice tech was maybe something consumers just weren't quite ready for.
0:20 Why did you download this video in 144p? Not even 1950s television looked that bad, come on man. I'm kind of surprised you didn't do the "Intellivoice - The name speaks for itself, and so does it" joke.
As a kid, I was always impressed when they had voices in SNES (and even N64) games. I recall only a few Gameboy games that had voices. Odd to think, that the technology existed even before the gameboy/SNES to do it, but it never caught on. Gaming history is filled with great ideas, that come out to early. The Wii U is getting a lot of hype, for doing what Sega tried to do in 1999. A controller with a personal built in screen.
Amazing game for 1981 and the use of voice is for gameplay not just for effect.nice machine. Used to live in Germany in the 80s never heard of it back then
A great review on the Intellivoice, very indepth. If I should ever consider getting an Intellivision, I would look into getting an Intellivoice Module if I can find one for a good price. Though I'm not sure if I will collect games and consoles for the 2nd Generation of gaming but you never know. I've only currently got two Atari 2600 games and an Atari 7800 (plus an NES and Master System as my oldest consoles).
What you say about having to pull the Intellivoice out slightly to make it work, I have to do that with almost every cartridge that I put into my Intellivision II.
The intellivision lives collection emulates the intellivoice, and it has space Spartans, so I'm gonna try it, thanks for the reccomendation to get that!
He is speaking english, I am having no problem understanding this very informative video. Cheers oh yeah, I am from the US where we have destroyed the english language!
@DLiberator78 lack of 3d party support and the other factors you mentioned before all rang the death bell for the intellivoice, but its fully deserving of a place in gaming history
Good episode, Matt! Your enthusiasm for gaming really shows in this one. It's good to see that You have a soft spot for this old girl... Good Job!!! See if u can get Your hands on a G7000. This was my first console before getting a C64 for my 8th birthday... All the best...
Good stuff you got going on here! Kinda channel makes want to watch even for things you didn't know about nor necessary be interested in,but your presentation makes it interesting.
@ReplayRetro Oh I totally agree with you, I never knew of its existence I was great seeing it in action and you're right it definitely deserves its place in history.
@grimmah1978 thanks man, that's some really great feedback there, always good to hear i'm doing well, thanks for your continued support (even if you do abuse my shoddy gameplay :p )
Well, or they changed major league baseball to implement a voice chip builtin or they use that trick to get voices out of the intv hardware soundchip,for wich i do know it’s possible by mixing those soundchannels and then quickly alternate it’s volume.
I own Intellivision Lives for the PS2. Which is a collection of Intellivision games (including Space Spartans) for the PS2. I also have a Vectrex emulator and the Activision Anthology Remix Edition (a collection of Atari 2600 games) for my laptop. As well as Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (a collection of Sega Genesis games) for the PlayStation 3. Which is probably the closest I will come to console games that old at the moment since the only platforms I have are: my laptop, PlayStation 2, and my PlayStation 3.
@17R3W there are so many gaming milestones we simply forget because they become the norm, the intellivoice was a brave piece of kit and Mattel deserved to do better
@DLiberator78 lack of 3rd party support and the other factors you mentioned before all rang the death bell for the intellivoice, but its fully deserving of a place in gaming history
This looks like a fantastic add-on. Its a shame that the Intellivoice never took off. I wonder if it was a price thing initially and did the games for it cost any extra? I think back in the day this would have been a cool addon. It reminds me of the voice in Gorf in the arcades. What a cool device, maybe it was too ahead of its time. Thanks for sharing.
DLiberator78 Originally, it was thought only 100,000 would sell. My dad had priced it at $18US but they kept pushing the price up and up and he was panicking but they said the market research said the market could bear a $90 price tag. So when it first shipped out from the factory, those first couple of days it barely sold but then the commercials featuring George Plimpton came out and within days, they had sold out. There were so many orders for more that there was factory setup in Gladina or something like that (can't remember the exact name) to manufacture more to try to fill some of the demand while the China factories caught up with the backlog of orders. My dad was still signing the production orders when they were in the 900,000's. My dad is Ron Carlson.
I'm wondering if the Sky Blue Rangers tricked management into thinking they needed more memory than they actually did to make the voices, and then used it to make the games much richer and more in-depth.
I noticed that under the 'Mattel Electronics' plate, it had some sort of Expansion Pin Port. It has a cover over it and it set up as 2x15 pin rows. Anyone know what it was going to be used for?
"Yeah, look at that! All you people that say im really bad at games, i just shot down a plane. Let me see you do that!" Oh all right, lets just pretend you didnt bomb your own country first then shall we? ;) Seriously tho, another amusing and informative review. Keep up the good work! I love watching your reviews, good indepth information, and good humour! No other review show on youtube has your length in reviews, without making them feel drawn out unecessarily. Keep making them.
Does anyone know why you have to have the cartridge just slightly out to work? I thought mine was broke and just bought it off of eBay not knowing anything about why it wasnt working till I watched this video.
Actually ReplayRetro you're wrong about how the game ends. The game doesn't end if you lose your star bases. When you lose a star base you lose the ability to repair. You lose the game 3 ways. 1) All your systems on the ship are destroyed (hyper drive, shields, tracking computer, etc.), 2) You attempt to warp while your hyper drive is down (50:50 chance of your ship blowing up reaching its destination), or 3) Your ship's energy level reaching ZERO.
@MaximumRD i feel i should make a confession here . . . . . . . . the only gameplay i could find of the Tron game was in one of your videos . . . . . . . . that's right, i'm a great big dirty thief . . . . . . . . i'll hang my head in shame (especially if i've also named the game wrong :p )
Great video! I love how comfortable you are in front of the camera, very natural--that's a gift! Great channel, watching all it has to offer, check out my channel sometime, it's similar to yours, but I'm just starting out. Thanks!
