Word Fun, NASL Soccer, Horse Racing: Intellivision Archive Episode 4

[@TheHylianBatman]

I really love how personal you make the videos. Every game is developed by a person who had an experience making it, and you share that, and that's just really neat to me. Thanks.

[@allenhuffman]

We saw you try to spell FUX. And right before Santa comes.

[@absolutezeronow7928]

An interesting mix of games: a edutainment game that's pretty decent, a good 8-bit soccer game that is better than Atari's 1981 one, and a horse racing game which would probably have had interest in Japan. Always nice to see what Mattel was up to.

[@AtariArchive]

You know the Intellivision was sold in Japan, which makes me wonder if Horse Racing was one of the more popular games there? Not easy info to come by.

[@allenhuffman]

"…using the letters on screen and a pair of monkeys…" Ah, the things we hear.

[@sandal_thong]

"GRIME" could have worked as the 2nd blue word.

[@HeroJournalism]

Love the coverage of the tangentially connected games, like that French soccer game, great stuff. I didn't know Word Fun was an Electric Co. license, I loved that show as a kid, I did a video on my channel about 70s live action Spider-Man TV and covered the EC Spidey shorts in it.

[@sandal_thong]

Sounds like they got a license for a lot of games in the hopes that they would sell better. They should have licensed Space Invaders before Atari, since that was the must-have game of 1980 and made the Atari VCS successful.

[@sandal_thong]

In the 1990s we came across a VCR/VHS horse racing & betting game called Let's Go to the Races. You decide whether to buy horses and/or bet on the next race. If you buy a horse that wins, places or shows, you get the purse. Obviously since it's a VHS tape, it will be the same each time, but I only played with a large group once. It gives you odds for each race of course. I think it's a little bit more involved than just betting and hoping, though there's nothing you can do to affect the outcome. Incidentally in 1981 Sears got their exclusive title, Steeplechase, for the Atari VCS & Sears Video Arcade, which this channel explored. I don't think there was betting though.

[@anactualmotherbear]

FERT! FUX! Great episode! Seeing horse racing makes me wonder how well that one sold in Japan when Bandai sold Intellivision consoles in 1982. I know it couldn't have been that great because foreign consoles were so expensive, but maybe it was a standout title?

[@SteveMacSticky]

I would have preferred intellivision instead of the 2600. No grating sound, better graphics. Better console

[@sandal_thong]

I had the 2600 and enjoyed it despite kids in the 1970s saying it wasn't very good, especially the sports games, where even the one-button-joystick Odyssey² beat Atari in 1978 in football and baseball (though was inferior in Basketball and Bowling). But for a time I wanted the Intellivision, probably because of its ad about having better sports games. Yet Atari's counter ad "Nobody compares to Atari" was also valid, saying that it had the games you wanted in 1981: Asteroids, Missile Command and Warlords. In the end, that's what makes the console: having games people want to play. Getting Space Invaders in 1980 sold the Atari and made Intellivision D.O.A. And by 1981 having good 1-player games was better than good 2-player games, sports or otherwise. Seeing so many bad games for Intellivision now makes me satisfied with my Atari experience as a kid. PS: Intellivision then countered with a similar kid in an ad saying "I didn't know" that Intellivision had space games. But at the time I thought it sounded sad, like they were saying "We have space games too:" Space Battle, Space Armada, Astro Smash. I learned later that Commodore then parodied both ads using William Shatner to promote the VIC-20, (which my dad later bought for me, though I hadn't asked for it). "A computer that plays great games? We didn't know." But the games in the ad didn't look so great. I ended up having the cartridges Radar Rat Race (a variation on Rally-X), Pole Position, Omega Race and three Scott Adams text adventure games that I solved. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y4eQk4OCotl0fMk