Intellivision and ColecoVision flashbacks

[ral-clan]

I bought the Atari Flashback 2 (the one that is an actual Atari 2600 in FPGA) and realliy liked it.

I'm pretty excited about the upcoming Intelliivision and Colecovision flashback consoles (I hope they use FPGA):

http://www.intellivisionrevolution.com/ ... -flashback

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.js ... d=35350896

[akator]

Agreed. Both of these systems look fun, especially at $40/each

Even with plenty of original hardware and emulation options, I've had a lot of fun with "plug and play" consoles.

[orion70]

Is there someone selling them and/or the Atari remake here in Europe?

[tokra]

I see this UK-company advertising in the Retro Gamer-magazine:

http://www.funstock.co.uk/retro-gaming/ ... g-consoles

[orion70]

40 $ --> 45 £ --> 55 € + P&P

Bad currency conversion as usual...

[tokra]

I don't know if devices directly from the US may only have 110V-power supplies... So when the UK-company adds a european 230V-one this might increase the price. Then there is VAT at 20% included in the UK-price. Not to speak of 2-year-warranty and the 14-day-right-of-return by law within the EU. I would also assume the UK-company has to import from the US. Really I've gotten used to $ price=EUR price from big companies by now and assume smaller ones are affected even more.

[highinfidelity]

Usually it's not the European company that adds the 230 V. It is the chinese children working at the PCB soldering line that do.

[bloguidice]

I bought the Atari Flashback 2 (the one that is an actual Atari 2600 in FPGA) and realliy liked it.

I'm pretty excited about the upcoming Intelliivision and Colecovision flashback consoles (I hope they use FPGA):

None of the new Atari, Intellivision, or ColecoVision Flashbacks use FPGAs. They're all custom chips with a software emulation layer. International releases are not planned at this time, so you'll need to snag a North American system if you want one.

[CBR125R]

The Atari FB2 and FB2+ were 2600s-on-a-chip, and did not use emulation. You can find instructions on the Internet to wire in a cartridge connector to use actual 2600 carts.

The FB3 and FB4 are, however, a custom implementation of an ARM processor that runs emulation in software. I have an FB2 and an FB4. Both do a good job of recreating the Atari VCS experience, but suffer because they are limited to only the Atari library. Some of the best VCS games were 3rd party, but the later Flashbacks don't include anything from Activision, Imagic, M-Network, CBS, etc.

The Intellivision FB might be great, as most of the better Inty games were inhouse productions. I'm wondering about the Colecovision FB; I would have thought that very few of its arcade conversions would not be available due to trademarks and copyrights, but we'll see.

[ral-clan]

I bought the Atari Flashback 2 (the one that is an actual Atari 2600 in FPGA) and realliy liked it.

I'm pretty excited about the upcoming Intelliivision and Colecovision flashback consoles (I hope they use FPGA):

None of the new Atari, Intellivision, or ColecoVision Flashbacks use FPGAs. They're all custom chips with a software emulation layer. International releases are not planned at this time, so you'll need to snag a North American system if you want one.

Bill,

I'm really interested in knowing about Canadian distribution. I haven't found any information on whether or not these are going to be available before Christmas in Canada. If you know anything I'm sure if you could share it a lot of Canadian retro-gamers would feel better.

Thanks.

[Mikam73]

No cartridge slot

[highinfidelity]

Well, obviously not. Those are not reissues. Basically the whole case has more or less the size of a cart.

[CBR125R]

On Christmas Day I ordered an Intellivision Flashback online. It took about a week to arrive and I have put in a few hours of gametime on it since. I'm very impressed by it. It isn't perfect (I'd give it 4.5 out of 5 stars) - but it is quite good IMHO. I own an original Intellivision 2609, and ordered this Flashback as a daily use system so that I can keep my old Intellivision safe in storage.

I think the new Flashback controllers are very close to the originals in both look and feel - the manufacturer did a great job with these. The picture quality on my LCD flat screen is good but not great - about the same as my original Intellivision connected via RF-coax adaptor.

The selection of 60 games is pretty decent: included are many old classics like Astrosmash, Night Crawler, Star Strike, Space Battle, etc. along with quite a few clunkers such as Math Fun or Word Fun. (Why bother including 'educational' games..?)

IMHO the quality of the emulation is very good. Honestly, I have to say that playing most of these games really doesn't look or feel any different to me than on my original system. Even the plastic keyboard overlays look like the 1980s originals!

So... what's not to like? Well, for one thing I'd like to see some of the third party games from Activision, Imagic, etc. I realize that there are licensing issues and that may not even be legally possible, but I hope that if there is an Intellivision FB2, they can get at least a few of those included.

I did notice that in a couple of the games, the sound effects seem a bit off. I saw one reviewer give this Flashback only 3 out of 5 stars because he was upset that the sound of the cards shuffling in Blackjack was off. I think that's being overly tough, but yes the sound isn't perfect in a few of the games.

Also, the quality of the decals on the console itself is sloppy. On the one hand, the wood grain decals on the front and back sides look great and really give it the Reagan-era look. However, the metallic gold decals on the top surface don't look as sharp - and worse, are sloppily applied. Mine has a big air-bubble trapped under it that looks cruddy, but that can't be squeezed out.

Overall, I am really pleased with my purchase.

[ral-clan]

I agree with CBR125R. I received both the Intellivision and ColecoVision flashback consoles for Christmas. Although I live in Canada, I am on a border town with the USA and so it was easy for family to cross over and pick these up (because they are not yet available outside the USA). I believe they were purchased for about $29US each, which makes them quite a good deal, in my opinion.

It was a very neat feeling to be unwrapping brand-new ColecoVision and Intellivision consoles as Christmas gifts in 2014.

I think the Intellivision is the better of the two flashback consoles. As mentioned, the looks are just spot-on - I love the wood-grain. The gold stickers on mine were applied a little better than described in the previous message, but I still had to press them down at the corners. The controllers are absolutely perfect, and in some ways better than the originals because the side buttons are slightly softer and don't hurt the fingers as easily as the original ones did. The only real difference is that the metallic label on the flashback's directional disk doesn't have the brushed texture, but put side by side they are almost identical with the original. With a simple passive adaptor (DIY or purchase) the flashback controllers can even be used on an original Intellivision console.

The overlays are extremely well done. Once you take the plastic protective film off them (which at first I thought was a defect) they look and feel exactly like the originals (I held a few of the original and flashback overlays side by side).

The emulation is pretty good. No real complaints, which is a good thing - as I have often been disappointed by bad emulation on some of these Plug-n-Play games. There are minor things, like the sound not being totally correct, and on some games the right part of the screen border (the solid border that surrounds the graphic area like on a VIC-20) is missing (at least I think so). But it wasn't really noticeable as the games played so well. The emulation seems smooth and accurate in terms of appearance and motion. One online reviewer complained about a sprite collision problem in Tower of Doom, but I didn't experience that.

The selection of games on the Intellivision flashback was quite good, and stronger than on the ColecoVision flashback. A lot of this probably has to do with the fact that Mattel (and later INTV Corp.) produced a lot of their own titles and therefore already own the copyright to them. Some of the outstanding titles that really make the Intellivision Flashback worth the price are the Dungeons & Dragons ports (Treasure of Tarmin and Cloudy Mountain - which they've renamed for copyright reasons), the Intellivoice games and the inclusion of all the Super-Pro sports games which have a single player (against an AI) option. I understand why there are "educational titles" on the Intellivision Flashback - because they owned the properties and it was easier to include them and expand the game selection than license Activision and other third party titles - and they are usually good quality titles - but unless you have small children I don't think they will get much use.

Coleco, on the other hand, was a console noted back in the 1980s for its large library of licensed arcade titles (i.e. Donkey Kong, Turbo, Time Pilot). While this was a boon when the original console was sold, it likely proved to be a hindrance to the Flashback as it was probably difficult to get these licenses renewed.

So regarding the Colecovision flashback: it's not a bad system, but there are some problems with it. Although there are some stand-out titles on this Flashback (Zaxxon, Dam Busters, Frenzy, Cosmic Avenger, Gateway to Apshai, Jumpman), you can really tell that because they couldn't procure a lot of arcade licenses they had to fill it out with some sub-par software. Yes, there are a couple of home-brew games on there which are excellent, but most are weak - and some which pale next to a VIC-20 unexpanded game.

The controllers are a let down - the At-Games designer of the flashback made the already short joy-stub even shorter (some conjecture he/she did not really know how they were mean to be operated). This has been a vocal complaint among Flashback buyers. The controllers are also smaller (which means the overlays are not interchangeable with original controllers like on the Intellivision Flashaback). Also, the side fire buttons have been reversed. The keypad is also a different colour, and there is no silver circular decal in the middle of the joy-stub. All I have to say is: why? If you're trying to evoke nostalgia, why change things unnecessarily and tick people off? Why not just make it the same? Everyone is buying it for the "flashback" experience.

The decals on the ColecoVision Flashback could have been made closer to the original. In fact, some enterprising individual is already selling improved decals for the Flashback that make it look a lot more like the original console. Again, I have to ask: why didn't At-Games do this? Why the half-measures?

The biggest let-down for Coleco retro-gamers was that although the Flashback controllers use the same 9-pin port as the original, they are not compatible. Not even with an adapter (like the Intellivision flashback). Apparently both the Intellivision and ColecoVision Flashbacks were supposed to be pin-for-pin compatible with the original consoles, but at some point an engineer for At-Games made the decision to change things. Everyone (including the owners of the Coleco and Intellivision brands) hopes that this will be rectified if there are 2.0 versions.

It's interesting to note that the recent Sega Genesis Flashback console now includes a cartridge port that will accept original cartridges! I knew about the Atari Flashback 2.0 being able to have a cartridge port installed (because it was a re-implementation of the original hardware, not emulation), but thought it was an impossibility with these new FPGA, emulated consoles. Apparently the Sega overcomes this by essentially making a "dump" of the cartridge software to its RAM and then running this instantly created software "ROM" in emulation. I think this is a clever move and hopefully opens up the possibility of second generation Coleco and Intellivision Flashbacks having a cartridge port.

In conclusion I think both of these Flashbacks are good value, with the Intellivision being worth the full price and the ColecoVision one being something better purchased when you can find it on sale. I think both do deserve a chance to come out in a second edition where some of the problems mentioned above can be ironed-out and the perhaps more licenses for software can be attained.

Now - I would love to see a VIC-20 flashback. Sadly, we'll probably never see one, as the VIC-20 doesn't have the same nostalgic resonance among the masses as the Atari, Intellivision, ColecoVision, Sega or even the C64DTV had. Although...we here at Denial know better...

[Vic 2000]

I think that's because consoles were so much more popular then computers back then. If you look at the number of sold units not even all Commodores computers put together will touch the sales of Atari 2600 alone. NES sold more units that all Ataris and Commodores computers and consoles put together by far (over 60 million sold units).

Consoles was for the family while computers mostly was for the hobby users with a burning interest in the new digital age. When i was a Vic 20 owner most people hardly knew what a computer was. Back then computers were for the entusiasts, today almost anyone owns a computer.

And yes, it would be fun to see a Flashback release of Vic 20 too.