Intellivision Flashback

As a child in the eighties, I had arguably the best video game system available – the Intellivision. Arguably is the key word here. A lot of people said that the Atari 2600 was better – but they are wrong.

The graphics on the Intellivision were miles ahead of the even-more-blocky Atari ones. The Atari did have more ‘arcade’ games – but the versions available at home were nothing like the arcade ones. Most of the best Atari games were watered down ports of the Intellivision games. The complaints about the difference in controllers really falls down to a matter of preference. The Atari had an 8 position joystick and a single button while the Intellivision had 2 pairs of buttons, a 12 digit keypad, and a 16 position disc.

While most of the x-box or PS kids today would probably have no problems with the extra buttons, to a group that hadn’t played anything before the Intellivision controller must have been overwhelming. I had no problems with it.

A later addition to the console wars was the Colecovision. While it had arcade-level graphics, and actual arcade games, it’s base controller was a bit more awkward then the Intellivision one. It did have a stubby joystick knob instead of the disc, but placed it at the top of the controller rather than under the keypad. It also had a super complex controller for the time – the Super Action Controller – with 4 trigger buttons, a 12 digit keypad, a standard ball joystick, and even a speed roller.

When nostalgia calls, it is awkward to hook up the old Intellivision system through an RF switch to be able to play. The Intellivision Lives game (70 games) for the Nintendo Game Cube and the Intellivison Play emulator (25 games) were both disappointing as they both required modifications to the games to use on the modern Game Cube style controllers. I know as I had picked up both of them hoping for that old Plimpton experience but did not get it from either.

Intellivision Lives! currently has listed an Intellivision Flashback – with a mini deck similar to the old woodgrain unit and two classic controllers. It’s loaded with 60 games but is missing a few of the licensed ones. They even have a Coleco Flashback unit as well. I know that they are both going on my list.