Intellivision overload

[vsp]

Originally posted by sycamore
But they seemed to look and sound better than your standard 2600 games. The non-Atari games (made by Activision, Imagine, etc.) always seemed to be better in that vein.

Depends on the game. Many of the "big name" Atari games were under VERY intense deadline pressure, which led to terrible end products. (Pac-Man and E.T. come to mind.) Acclaim is a good analogy, or Sega and Data East when it comes to pinball -- they regularly spend more time and money acquiring the rights to a popular property than they do developing a decent game that incorporates it.

The difference, of course, is that Atari's programmers _could_ create a decent game when properly motivated. Acclaim, IMHO, hasn't developed a single one yet. I mean, look at this <a href="http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/company/215.html">cavalcade of shit</a>. In Acclaim's _entire history_, they haven't developed a single game that was even _as good as_ similar games on the market at that time, let alone one that was better, and if you take out the Bust-a-Move games, they haven't even PUBLISHED one.

Acclaim fucked up BUBBLE BOBBLE. How can _anyone_ fuck up Bubble Bobble?

Ahem. Anyway, Activision and Imagic generally didn't port familiar arcade properties or spend megabucks on licence fees; for many games, they "borrowed" gameplay mechanics and reused them in creative ways. Astro Blaster became Megamania. Q*Bert became Frostbite and Quick Step. Frogger became Freeway. Battlezone became Robot Tank. Phoenix became Demon Attack. Space Zap became Cosmic Ark. Raiders of the Lost Ark became Riddle of the Sphinx.)

But they also had great original concepts, too. Pitfall broke new ground in platform-scrolling adventures. Stampede, Kaboom, Decathlon, River Raid, Dragonfire... these were simple ideas that made other companies wonder why they didn't think of them first, and they made their companies a fortune. (Hiring away some of Atari's better programmers certainly made this a lot easier.)

Other third-parties were more erratic. Parker Bros. stuck with licenced properties, and had just enough good games to avoid being the Acclaim of their day. CBS had a gem with Mountain King and a slew of mediocre arcade ports. Fox did MUCH better with their original games (Beany Bopper, Turmoil!, Worm War I) than with their licences (Mega Force, M*A*S*H, Porky's, Flash Gordon).

And then you had companies like Froggo and Zimag and Data Age and Mythicon and Apollo that unapologetically shoveled shit onto store shelves in pretty boxes, along with Coleco (who did it for every system but their own).

The 2600 was a bastard to program for, though some intrepid souls have released homebrew games in recent years. (Search <a href="http://www.atariage.com/software_search.html?SystemID=2600">here</a> for Rarity = H (Homebrew) for a list of recent 2600 creations.)

The Intellivision had _much_ more going for it under the hood than the 2600 did, and their games looked much better. So why didn't it dominate its era? Because Atari was there first, _and_ (more importantly) Atari had the licenced properties people wanted to play. The same principle applies today; there were _several_ competitors to the Game Boy and Game Boy Color that kicked its ass eight ways to Sunday, but they didn't have Mario and Tetris and Pokemon and Nintendo's marketing muscle... so they died out.