Among other updates, Intellivision Lives has announced that they've just once again made available 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 check out 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):

Beeslife is making available the new Moon Patrol take-off, Space Patrol, for the Mattel Intellivision, along with an updated version of the Tetris take-off, 4-Tris. I've been anticipating the release of Space Patrol for some time, so this is welcome news.

A copy and paste from the release:

CC3 Package MenuAs many of you know, Chad Schell's Cuttle Cart 3 for the Intellivision was recently released and was a boon to enthusiasts who wanted a ROM flash cart/development environment for Mattel's system. The one "downside" to the Cuttle Cart 3 was that you needed to set up your own menus, manuals and ROMs for use with the miniSD card. Obviously, one solution is to get the official ROM releases from Intellivision Productions, but it still requires a lot of setup work and is not all-inclusive (support them and their products anyway!). An even better solution - an addition to everything else you might want to do with the Cuttle Cart 3 or Intellivision emulation in general if you will - is get David Harley's new release, which includes ROMs that have never been seen before and a variety of patched software (for instance, the amazing Ehanced Computer System (ECS)-based World Series Major League Baseball is fully functional now!).

From David's e-mail:

Main Menu for the Cuttle Cart 3: Mattel IntellivisionChad Schell, creator of the famous "Cuttle Cart" multi/flash cart series for the Atari 2600 and 7800, has spun his magic again, this time for the Mattel Intellivision as the "Cuttle Cart 3". It's been a very long time since the Intellivision has had anything like this available, and the good news is is that this improves on past efforts for the system by being fully flashable and making use of MiniSD cards. The only downside (at least for me) is that it won't load the Enhanced Computer System (ECS) World Series Major League Baseball ROM, one of the most impressive early baseball games, and one of the few games I've been so far unable to acquire on cartridge for the Intellivision that I've wanted (and the only one I"m missing for the ECS add-on).

At $150 plus shipping and handling, it's not cheap, but it's still one of those undeniable "must buys" for collectors and enthusiasts, particularly since this will be yet another limited production run. It even works as a development system. I ordered mine, just like I previously ordered the "Cuttle Cart 2" for the 7800/2600. Full details here, including photos and manuals.

For a system line that sold over three (3) million consoles from 1980 - 1990, Mattel's (later INTV's) Intellivision has been woefully lacking in new homebrew developments compared even to some competing hardware platforms that were around for and sold less. Nevertheless, since the days of 4-TRIS (2000, Joe Zbiciak) and Chad Schell's Intellicart (a now exceedingly rare multi-cart; a version 3 is presently in development and will go by the same branding as the Atari versions: Cuttle Cart), both interest and development in and for the system line has been improving. This new year looks to be among the best yet.