Lets Play: Venture on the Atari 7800

Venture was released by Coleco in 1982 as a launch title for the ColecoVision.  It was a conversion of the 1981 Exigy arcade machine.  For it’s time it was considered to be both technically and artistically superb, winning an award for it’s graphics on release.

Coleco eventually released it on the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision home systems.  We’re taking a look on the Atari 7800.

Continue reading “Lets Play: Venture on the Atari 7800”

Mattel Intellivision

Mattel Intellivision

2nd Generation Competitors
Atari 2600 Vectrex
Region Release Date Discontinued Lifetime Sales
Japan 1982  1990  3M (total)
North America 1980 1990
Europe 1982 1990

Mattel decided to enter the console world in 1977, but they didn’t release the Intellivision properly until 1980.  That placed it squarely in the second generation of consoles.

Due to Mattel‘s manufacturing and supply power they were able to ship huge amounts of consoles to shops and they got some powerful exclusive titles, like Nintendo‘s Donkey Kong.

The machine will go down as one of the best consoles of all time, and it’s contribution to the pre-crash console world cannot be overstated.

The controller was interesting, the joystick was quite nice to use and it had a keypad that could use overlays (an idea borrowed by Atari for the Jaguar).  Both controllers slid into a compartment on the main machine for easy storage.

It’s main competitor was the Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800

Continue reading “Mattel Intellivision”