Among other updates, Intellivision Lives has announced that they've just made available once again the highly sought after Steamroller for the ColecoVision, an unreleased game created for Activision from 1984. It was released in limited quantities of ~100 at CGE back in 2000, and is once again available in a limited release of 100. I know I got mine and also ordered a nifty running man poster made up of the 125 original mainstream releases for the Intellivision for my basement den area. Fun stuff and with all the recent buzz about the Intellivision lately, I'm glad there's also a boost for the ColecoVision while we're at it! When you're at the Blue Sky Rangers/Intellivision Productions/Intellivision Lives Website, be sure to checkout their news section for other interesting updates!

Gamasutra has just posted the fifth of six entries from me and Matt Barton in the "A History of Gaming Platforms" series, this time on the Mattel Intellivision, here. This was one of my favorite entries to write in the book this series is based off of, so I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. As a bonus, I've included here on Armchair Arcade the additional captions and images that Gamasutra chose not to include (I think I again improved image quality - by the way, those screenshots are DIRECT video captures straight from an Intellivision II, NOT from an emulator, and everything else of course is also straight from my personal collection). The next and presumably final entry will be on the Atari 8-bit. Enjoy and I'd love to hear some feedback, as I think it ranks right up there with the best overall articles ever written on platform (said with all due modesty and respect, of course ;-) ).

The unused images and all the captions (used and unused):

A new episode of RetroGaming Radio is out, here. From the Press Release: "Shane discusses hypocrisy and parental responsibility with gaming, catch the rare round table talk from the whole staff from CGE 2007, we review Cinemaware's Wings for the Amiga, Chasing the Chuckwagon and more!"

Well, it's been quite some time since I've bothered doing any on camera work (2004 to be exact) and I was kind of itching to do something a bit different again, so I came up with the idea for "The Goodnight Gamer", where, late at night, after my family goes to sleep (and already in my "jammies"), I go downstairs and do quick 10 minute or less episodes covering all kinds of (mostly vintage) videogame and computer content, much like Armchair Arcade itself. This first episode breaks that rule by being much longer than 10 minutes (hence being broken down into four parts), but was necessary to provide the baseline tour of the "facility". The idea is to have fun and knock these out quick - in one take - with minimal editing and post processing from a cheap flash memory-based pocket camcorder. I'll of course refine the concept over time. Enjoy and I'd love to hear feedback (bad and good). Thanks! [Note: I had to use Revver this time due to exceeding 10 minutes, but I'll get it down for the next episode so it also fits YouTube]

Episode 1, Part 1 (of 4):

Episode 1, Part 2 (of 4):

Remember those good old days when the next new game for your home computer would come from typing in a listing published in the latest magazine? Well I thought it would be nice to re-introduce those golden days by starting a topic focusing on (mini) listings especially for the Commodore 64 computer.

Howard Sherman: Malinche Entertainment's Big KahunaAs many of you are well aware, I've always been a big fan of Infocom and interactive fiction. Although text adventures aren't nearly as ubiquitous as they were back in Infocom's heyday, they are still being developed and published today--and, thanks to the chutzpah of one man, Howard Sherman, they are becoming commercially viable once again. Sherman's company, Malinche Entertainment, is, to quote Sherman, "Infocom 2.0." I think you're going to really enjoy reading the following interview, in which Sherman talks about his ideas and goals to promote and support the interactive fiction community. Howard is a great guy, and I really appreciate what he's doing for an often underrated (and unappreciated!) genre. Big thanks to Howard and Malinche Entertainment for taking time out to answer my questions!

After two iterations of the System Ranking Matrix database on the old Website and as my personal collection has grown, I've always wanted Armchair Arcade to be able to contribute to the greater knowledge via our own contribution to the growing number of Museum Websites. I want ours to cover "Videogames, Computers and Handhelds", meaning everything, which is really what AA is all about--everything.