Second VideoGame Generation Recap - Mattel Intellivision - Adam Koralik 

My Uncle had an Intellivision, he's got that nostalgia for it. He always talked about how much better it was than the 2600.

Mattel electronics presents B17 Booooomber!!!!!!

The Intellivision was fairly popular and was easily Atari's most serious competitor until the Colecovision came along. Even if you didn't have one at the time, you saw the TV ads for it, which were everywhere, and they emphasized in particular how much better their sports games looked than the Atari VCS's, because it was easy to do a head-to-head comparison there. Their TV spokesman was the snooty-accented writer George Plimpton--I guess it was because of his associations with sports, but this is something no games company would ever do in a million years today, so it just kind of highlights how weird things could be back then. Eventually, though, Mattel started up "M Network" which was a line of ports of original Intellivision games to the Atari 2600, and the ports were pretty good, only slightly less visually sophisticated than the originals--I think they even did the sports games. I always thought it was odd that they were diluting their competitive advantage, but at that point they likely figured Atari ports would make them more money.

We had the intellivision. My friend had the voice pack as well. The games looked and ran better than the 2600. We enjoyed Advanced Dungeon and Dragons, Auto Racing, Astrosmash, and Poker

Uh, none of the GenXers I know regard Intellivision as a "Flop". Plenty of people had them, and as an Atari owner I appreciated how nice the Intellivision was whenever I was at a friend's place (who owned one). Mattel's only failure is they didn't continue with a true successor with upgraded specs. If you think about it, that was wise because the discerning gamers were going through a phase of obsessing over home computers.

The *_ColecoVision_* is the best pre-NES console there is. Looking forward to the next episode.

YES! The Intellivision was the first home console I ever played! Following the C64. My Stepdad still has it & some games hidden in the basement. I’m still trying to rescue it. Maybe I’ll eventually convince him to dig it out one day. Man I remember the SEGA channel that was super fun!

Give the console it's due and play it. You'll be in for a pleasant surprise. Astrosmash and Space Battle were early "killer apps". Great home adaptions of Burgertime and Ladybug as well.

AstroSmash is one of the best (non tennis) space shooters. You should play it. It was on the 2600 as Astroblast

Hi, we owned one in the 80's in South-Africa. Ordered the cartridges through the post from the States.

My first system! It was a hand me down from my dad, from when he was a teen. My grandparents never threw anything away and it was just sitting in thier garage. I loved it! Astrosmash, Armor Battle, Space Battle, Atlantis, Lock N' Chase, Pitfall, and Advandced D&D. Just to name a few a the great games. You should really play Astrosmash probably the killer app for the system.

Great video. I like the design of the wood grain console, and also the white version. Very cool designs aesthetically.

My first console. I loved playing Astrosmash. Don't knock it, Adam. It's a great fucking game. :3

I was litterally just watching your 2015 neogeo episode. Right on time bro; time to binge watch.

Well, Mattel did originally distribute the NES in Canada and Europe as well as bring the Power Glove to North America.

great and informative review. I had the first intellivision in the early 80's and loved it. yep b-17 bomber was one of my favorites. utopia, sea battle, baseball, mirosurgeon, tron, football. was way ahead of it's time and very fun to play.

Intellivision had pretty good sports games. Hell, even their M-Network games for the Atari 2600 were pretty good.

I would have loved if you talked a bit on the weird controller.

Mattel electronics presents: "B-17 Bomber" (sorry i had to do it)

I bought one of these brand new, loved it. It was advertised as the Atari 2600 killer. But was made to give you the feel of having a colecovision. The voice synth was marketed with the B-17 Bomber game. I heard a few years back that someone bought all the games rights and were releasing them on the mobile platforms. You can also get an emulator to play all the games on your PC. Mattel also released a home computer called the Aquarius, which were game ports from the intellivision games.

About two minutes into the video, you said that in Europe the Intellivision was not so popular. Well, you are too young, believe me, it WAS very popular, as a kid I knew dozens of people who had it, it was advertised in all specialized magazines and on TV, it could be found in all shops which sold electronic stuff. It disappeared, that's correct, in the second half of the 1980s, and yet in some large shops you could still find Intellivision cartridges as late as in the early 1990s. The fact that you never saw one in Europe is a coincidence, or it is due to the fact that retrogaming has never been so widespread in most European countries.

I am into the intellivision because my dad and I collect together and one time he got an awesome lot of a boxed console with like 50 boxed games and we have been collecting for it ever since. i actually just bought him a boxed IntelliVoice with four boxed games that support it for Christmas. yes the Hyperscan doesn't count! I agree it is weird that they made games for each other, that's like making mario 3d world for the PS4 and XBOX ONE lol. I think it is becaus ethis gen was more about makinga quick buck than kepping video games alive or giving them a meaning. Great vid! i really want a vectrex... :( lol

When I was a kid, this was the machine that got me into gaming! Loved the intellivision!

I had an intellivision 1 and wish I knew where it went. Use to love swapping out the interchangeable sleeves that slid over the buttons. Lost a lot of sleep playing frogbog, hockey, and the tank war game.

Loved the Intellivision when I was a kid, and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was my jam. What's funny is that my local library actually had Intellivision games like Sharp Shot and a few others, I'm sure before the powers that be decided that video games would turn your brain to mush and lead to degenerate behavior. Oh well!

Awesome video Adam!

This was actually my primary videogame system until I was 8 years old. My parents wouldn't get me a Super Nintendo so I had to play it at a friend's house or play this until we got the new Nintendo 64. I would basically exclusively play Donkey Kong on InTV, despite having 12 games. It was just the most fun... turns out Miyamoto knew what he was doing.

After first reading about it in magazines I held out for one, using friends' VCSs to supplement coin-ops. It set a standard for controllers for the rest of the generation (which I will always call the 1st, the pre-cartridge systems weren't really consoles) including pseudo-analog control. In addition to pushing the concept of non-arcade licensing Mattel also made voice integral to gameplay long before anyone else. While my favorites came from Imagic, Activision also produced a number of exclusive originals, in addition to great Mattel titles including the granddaddy of resource sims, Utopia. I collected 60-70% of the library as a teenager, easily the best system of the time for original, non-coin-op-derived console games.

The Intellivision was definitely not a complete flop! It sold 3 million units worldwide, which is still pretty slim compared to the 25 million+ consoles that the Atari VCS sold, BUT the Intellivision was Atari's biggest competitor and the only console that, for a very short time in 1982, was actually nearly neck-and-neck with them. The much smaller sales are due to Intellivision's much shorter time on the market (the VCS was around for about 3 years before the Intellivision was even released). The Intellivision had a fairly larger price tag, so it was more of a high-end system by the early 80's when compared to the VCS, but tons of people had one.

Hi Adam. Love your series so far. I grew up in this series and remember fondly that the graphics on these were far superior than what I had on my 2600 at the time. I wanted one so bad, but never saw one in the day. I think its noteworthy to mention that it also could be considered one of the first consoles with a 16-bit processor and definitely had more horsepower.

The homebrew "Intellivania" looks pretty good. Same with the homebrew of that Super Italian Plumber who we won't talk about because the a-holes in Redmond Washington will sue over it.

...Oh, yeah, the other thing I was gonna say about the Intellivision was that, when it first launched, the TV ads *heavily* emphasized that they were going to come out later with the "Intellivision Keyboard Component", this hulking thing that the base unit would plug into that would transform it into a true home computer. That promise arguably moved a fair number of units, but the Keyboard Component was this cursed project that kept slipping behind schedule and over budget, and eventually the federal government stepped in, accused them of false advertising and started charging Mattel exorbitant fines until they could ship this thing. What they eventually did was go back to square one and develop a completely *different*, much less capable keyboard computer expansion that they could actually ship, so they could get the government off their backs. I don't think many people bought them. But I think the whole business made the Intellivision something of a headache within Mattel, even though it was a fairly successful product on its own.

My mom had this console in the early eighties. Unfortunately, it was sold at a garage sale in the mid '90s, but now I wish I had it.

i find your channel really interesting whenever i need information on older consoles i find i just need to find one of your videos on hey presto...keep up the good work!!..*subscribed*

This was the first video game system my parents owned and I absolutely loved it my favorite game to play with my mom was dungeons and dragons.

There are some consoles that were ahead of their time. I would place the Intellivision with the Dreamcast and first Xbox. They pushed peripherals that would eventually be the norm. Dreamcast with online gaming and Xbox with broadband only. The Intellivision introduced vision for the videogame industry. Unfortunately, the lack of support, and of course 1983, hurt the console's momentum. On a side not, claiming the console flopped when you haven't played the majority of the games is lazy. Astrosmash was not a "space based tennis game." It was a rival to asteroids, with a thriving community of fans. Intellivision maintained a newsletter where fans of the game took pictures of their high scores and the newsletter published them.

Believe it or not, the Intellivision was probably my first video game experience. When I was a kid in the early 90s, my babysitter's kids would play this on their TV when I would go to their house. While I had fun playing it, I was then blown away when they got a Sega Genesis and immediately knew that I needed one! Still, I have to hand it to the Intellivision for introducing me to the world of video games.

I just stumbled on to your channel and I'm hooked thanks for the awesome content!!!!!

*Boy, I do love retro consoles.* *An this is why i have subbed to your channel.*

cool video tech talk adam

We had one of these back in the day. I loved playing Blackjack on it.

Mattel actually also released another console. Well kind of. They were the original distributor for the NES in the UK and they had "Mattel Version" printed on the front. I think they weren't of the highest build quality and Nintendo took over pretty soon after.

It was also (technically) the 1st 16-bit system. My nephew had one back then, I remember loving Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (a more advanced version of Adventure), so I sought mine out 5 or 6 years ago. Burgertime is almost as good as the Coleco version too.

This was actually the first 16-bit console. Just goes to show how bits don't say much about a console's capabilities. The PC Engine was famously 8-bit but was able to compete in the 4th Generation. The original Xbox had a Pentium III, so it was technically a 32-bit console, as was the Wii.

Those controllers are really cool, the game specific overlays are neat.

Hey don't diss Astroblasters! That game was basically Galaga but with a different name. I grew up playing Intellivision because my siblings were all like 20 years older than me and they left the console to me. I grew up as an only child so I never felt the need to get another console until Nintendo 64 because so many older games were 2 player. I do however have every handheld ever pretty much. So as someone who grew up playing the console I will say its not bad, it kept me entertained, I think my siblings must have had over 50 games for it but Frogger was my favorite.

Damn, I remember that shit! I had an Intellivision back in the day. Favorite game was some top view F1 racing game...

I had it. Loved it fond memories

Colecovision was hands down the best of the 2nd generation.

Great video!

I still have my III! Got it for a birthday with the computer module.

9:21-9:24 I loved playing with that version as a kid!

I just found your channel and I'm hooked! Awesome video. By any chance do you have the Sears Super Video Arcade version of the Intellivision? I just found my dad's old one sitting in the attic and I'm trying to clean it all up. I don't know anything about this version either. He used to work at Sears when they were selling Pong.

Mattel also distributed the NES and many of it's games in Australia, Italy, New Zealand and the UK. It fact they labelled it as the "Mattel Version" and made their own region locking PAL-A to prevent you from importing PAL-B variants from the rest of Europe. Mattel also distributed the Gameboy and SNES, as well as first party games in Australia and New Zealand until 1994, when Nintendo Australia was founded in 1994 and took over.

The Intellivision has an interesting history indeed - after inTV folded, Keith Robinson, an original programmer at Mateel Electronics, eventually bought the rights to all Intellivision IP. He is directly responsible for all the Intellivision compilations and the Intellivision Lives! website (via Intellivision Productions), and worked directly with AtGames to produce the Inty Flashback. Were it not for a screwup with the controller wiring, the Flashback controllers would work with the Intellivision II! But a fan site does offer an adapter to allow you to use them. The home brew scene is pretty active, and I think the reason that it's popular is that this was the console we all wanted when it came out, but was too freakin' expensive for most of us to afford! It did cost $300 in 1980 money, after all. That's close to $1K in today's money.

For as much as you talked about matels hyper scan I feel like this Consol deserved more air time on your Channel.

I gave mine to my father once I purchased the Colecovison.

I was just reading about Mattel's online service the other day. I believe it was called PlayCable or something like that. Cool to know that kind of thing was around that long.

Now got a flashback unit I wish they bring out another one

didnt atari have gamelive about the same time the intellivision went online too? Or was that a year or so before. I know the guys behind aol did that before they did aol

Consoles always have innovative, voice speech first in consoles, not computer games, that is awesome, I mean wasn't the first 3D release for Playstation1, is impressive what those old console generations have lead us to, I guess we can thank them now for what it's has come in gaming. You should do a video about how each console from the first to our current consoles have innovative, what each one has credit for innovating in the video games.

We got an Intellivision when I was in 2nd grade (1982) for Christmas. My aunt and uncle had one and we spent hours playing the Electric Factory games and Poker and Blackjack (that shifty eyed dealer) and Baseball (Phillies vs Dodgers). When we got our own, it was at the end of the run but that meant plenty of clearance games that we could buy. Lock 'n Chase was great fun, as was Burgertime. I loved Astrosmash as well. We eventually picked up a computer plug in module and I learned basic on that thing. I just wish we had found the voice module. We had a game that was voice enabled but didn't play right (I'm guessing because of the missing voice module). I had lots of good times with that thing until I got a NES in 1986. My parents still have it I think - buried in their attic I'm guessing. Should be there with my NES and SNES consoles :(

Apparently my dad had an intellivison and played dungeons and dragons on it back in the 80s , nuts

We had an Intellivision, with three inbuilt games. Mattel was also the first distributor of the NES in the UK.

I had an Intellevision. My mother picked it up for us from a friend of hers that was going to toss it. I want to say it was in the late 80's. It was after we had an NES but before we got our SNES. I remember it being fairly fun but didn't play it much because we had a NES. I remember a car race game that you ccould play in 2 player and basically you just had to outrun your friend's car to past the end of the screen. And at one point i'd just try to see how far I could make it off the track between building, trees, etc. lol.

Snafu was kind of like the tron light cycles. In addition, there was lock n chase, sea battle, space battle (which was used on the call-in tv gameshow "clubhouse pow"), utopia, tron, dungeons and dragons, baseball, and poker/black jack.

I have the consoles composite modded, This is my favorite childhood console... you forgot the Radio Shack Tandyvision...lol

I think I had one of those knock-offs of the intellivision when I was little, but it was just a controller with composite cords coming from it and had around 100 games built in. It was pretty cool

Loving the series but could you please at least add some pics of the games so we can see what they looked like?

Hey Adam can you add on to the 2nd gen recap series with the rca studio 2? You can find it on eBay for fairly cheap.

I grew up with the intellivision, we had a few in my extended family too, intellivision 1s and IIs. Tons of great games, even had a vertical scrolling shmup called mission X. Imo, the console had a lot more quality games than the 2600 or possibly even colecovision.

Did you get any of the cards that slide in the controller over the numbers, they were game specific? I imagine they didn’t survive

I had one, my first console along with the Atari 5200......my favorite game was Lock n Chase.

Best console ever. So innovative!!!! Super Pro Basketball where you DRAFT players that have salaries. Utopia is the Grandfather to SimCity. B17-Bomber was a great game. Blew away Atari and I think kept up with Colecovision.

My dad had an intellivision as a teen but i have never seen one in person that i remember.

I'm from the UK and I've never seen an intelevision in person, they were unsuccessful over here due to the home computer boom at the time, same with the colecovision, the atari 2600 was somewhat successful here for some bizarre reason though fun fact: the last game ever produced for the intelevision was deep pockets, a pool game that has a copyright date of 1990, it was never officially released, but can be found online as a rom and was even released on XBLM in 2010!

While my first system was the Sega Master System in mid-1988 (I picked it over the NES since I could play NES anytime at my friend's house and I really enjoyed Sega arcade games like Space Harrier, Shinobi, etc) the Intellivision was my SECOND system (which an older neighbor gave me later in 1989). It was the InTV version.... but when it was first given to me, I had NO clue the system was still in production (I thought they had died when Mattel stopped producing the system and I thought the Intellivision that was given to me was a discontinued system) but InTV made NEW games from 1986 till 1989 (most of them were given to me by my neighbor and a lot of those later released games are not only some of the best on the system, but they are RARE and expensive now). Some of these games include Diner (the SEQUEL to Burgertime), Body Slam Pro Wrestling, Stadium Mud Buggies, and a few more of the later (and now rare and expensive) releases. I also got some of the early 80's, very common releases like Astrosmash. In my later years, with the invention of RU-vid, I've seen all the early Intellivision commercials with "Mr.Intellivision" himself, Sir George Plimpton, who started the first console war with Atari by outright calling out Atari in the Intellivision commercials and comparing Intellivision games to Atari 2600 games (he started with the sports games... but later attacked many of Atari's other games). Atari later responded with their OWN attack ads against Intellivision and George Plimpton with their own "Real Sports" series of commercials.

Mattel was also the distributor of the NES in Australia and parts or Europe. They also made the Power Glove. I'm not sure if that should count or not.

Take a shot every time Adam says HYPERSCAN DOESN'T COUNT!!!!!

My brothers and I would fight over this thing. We were obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons.

did it have Blast Processing?

I had an intellivision and loved it. Baseball, Astrosmash, Pitfall, and Burgertime were the best games I had. And each game came with a little plastic card you slid over the keypad to tell you what the buttons did for that particular game. It was a weird controller but had more functionality than the Atari controller, so I guess that's why at the time it didn't seem so odd. now it would feel really weird tho for sure.

What's the name of the new game store in Chicago you mentioned in this video? I'd like to check it out. Thanks!

What about the Mattel Aquarius? That was a game system (As well as a computer)

Had it as a kid, the voice was not bad (Bomb Squad).

Just saw one of these in my aunt's second hand shop. had a ton of games, too, but the console itself was in far too degraded a condishion to be worth purchasing. Seems like a neat machine.

Growing up in that era I remember that Atari 2600 was the system most kids wanted cause everyone had one, Intellivision was the system the "rich" kids had and showed off to their 2600 friends. Odyssey 2 was the system your parents got for you for Christmas when you wanted a 2600 or an Intellivision but the stores sold out of 2600's and the Intellivision was too expensive on Christmas Eve. That is why I was a Odyssey 2 owner 😄.

I haven't tried to pick up an original, but I did grab a Flashback system. While it belonged to my uncle, the Intellivision was the first non-Pong game console I ever played. Played a lot of Triple action back in those days.

I actually still have mine. It works fine and have lots of games. It was a good system. I loved the game B17 bomber one of the first voice games. Wonder if I should sell it some day?

Mattel was the distributor for the NES in Australia

The intelavoice was a great idea if only they had made more then just a very small amount of games that supported it

i had an intelivision with the wood finish. it was a lot of fun qhen I was a really young kid

I grew up in France, I had it, before the 2600, it was pretty easy to found it, lot of games even the beach volley :) it was maybe 1981 or 82 I don't remember :)

I had Intellivision 2 and 3. I really loved it. The games were a 1,000 times better than anything on the Atari 2600. Tron Deadly Discs was the best game on any system up until the NES came along. Games like Worm Whomper and Burgertime are out standing. Lots of my friends had Intellivsion. You look too young to appreciate this system. You need to add the overlays to truly enjoy the game.

I liked the intellivision. My friend had that and I had the 2600. He gave me a bunch of games, in box with inserts. All the games you mentioned except empires, I have. Troy solar sailer is sealed and it uses the intellivoice module. Don't have one. 😔

This is part of our quick shoot series...

thanks Adam. Am I right in saying that Mattel also had a version of the nes released? I have seen pictures of it. so could this have been another reason why they would not put there other system into compete???

Astrosmash and Triple Action were my favorite games on the system. Both my Dad and his brother had systems back then. They were the Sears Super Video Arcade, which I happen to have as a hand me down. I may do a video on it in the future. Like you said Adam, this gen is a weird one. Not only did competing companies make games for each other, but they also licensed out their tech to stores, like Sears, to sell their own versions. Interesting stuff. Also, you need to find B17 Bomber. It's by far the best game for that voice module. You may not like it today, but back then, with you and a friend, it was an incredible game to play. One of the lines I remember most was, "Bandits, 12 o'Clock!" Awesome stuff. Astrosmash, that is a game that is more like Space Invaders meets Astroids. It's an incredible game, at least in my opinion. There is another game that might be the first ever Shmup, and that is Mission X. Its an awesome game too. Plus we can't forget Frog Bog, Frogger, Pit Fall, Night Stalker and Space Armada. A lot of, if not all of these games, are on the Intellivion Lives! collection disk. I have it for Xbox. B17 Bomber is on there as well, so, you could try it on there, but playing it on the real hardware is just mind boggling when you factor in how old the hardware is. Awesome stuff. Anyways, I grew up with the system, playing it sometimes over my NES, mainly because I had, or still have, like 30 games for the system. Nice video as always Adam. If you have any questions, I would be glad to help answer them.

We had Coleco vision it was great

I'm Australian, I found one or two Intellivision game cartridges at my local GameTraders recently. But I've never seen the actual console.