My first video game console was an Intellivision, which we got for Christmas in 1982. However, I'm not terribly interested in nor excited about this.
In all honesty, most of the games have not aged well even in terms of gameplay. My family got rid of our Intellivision back in the mid-90s, but I picked up an Intellivision Lives! disc for the (original) Xbox for about $5 back around 2005. Even the games that were my favorites as a kid were too simplistic to hold my interest. I suppose that the pure action/arcade titles might hold up alright with a modern facelift, but I always preferred games like the two AD&D titles, Sea Battle, Swords & Serpents (iMagic), Utopia, etc — concepts which were very limited by the technology and which have been far better realized on systems that came later.
Also, the controllers were terrible. Not just because they stopped working frequently (the circuits inside the controller would wear through with enough use and needed to be replaced), but they weren't very responsive even when they were new. The controllers were also quite uncomfortable to hold; Nintendo's D-pad and horizontal orientation were a huge improvement.
@techdude, @JDORS - the original Intellivision controllers had four rectangular "Action" buttons (two on each side of the controller), plus a 12-button numeric keypad that occupied the top and middle of the controller. Most games included unique overlays that slid over the keypad, with a custom button configuration for that game: https://dustyconsoles.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/img_0772.jpg
Most of the early simple games still came with overlays, even if they were primarily decorative (as in, they only used the keypad for numeric input — number of players, etc). Many of the later simple games did not come with overlays, especially 3rd party games.
So that is the purpose of the touchpad on these controllers — to take the place of the custom button functions and layout for individual titles. Many of the "updated" original games will use this, as they aren't playable with only the side "Action" buttons.
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Re: There's A New Intellivision Coming, And A Trio Of Former Nintendo Staffers Are Helping Launch It
My first video game console was an Intellivision, which we got for Christmas in 1982. However, I'm not terribly interested in nor excited about this.
In all honesty, most of the games have not aged well even in terms of gameplay. My family got rid of our Intellivision back in the mid-90s, but I picked up an Intellivision Lives! disc for the (original) Xbox for about $5 back around 2005. Even the games that were my favorites as a kid were too simplistic to hold my interest. I suppose that the pure action/arcade titles might hold up alright with a modern facelift, but I always preferred games like the two AD&D titles, Sea Battle, Swords & Serpents (iMagic), Utopia, etc — concepts which were very limited by the technology and which have been far better realized on systems that came later.
Also, the controllers were terrible. Not just because they stopped working frequently (the circuits inside the controller would wear through with enough use and needed to be replaced), but they weren't very responsive even when they were new. The controllers were also quite uncomfortable to hold; Nintendo's D-pad and horizontal orientation were a huge improvement.
@techdude, @JDORS - the original Intellivision controllers had four rectangular "Action" buttons (two on each side of the controller), plus a 12-button numeric keypad that occupied the top and middle of the controller. Most games included unique overlays that slid over the keypad, with a custom button configuration for that game: https://dustyconsoles.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/img_0772.jpg
Most of the early simple games still came with overlays, even if they were primarily decorative (as in, they only used the keypad for numeric input — number of players, etc). Many of the later simple games did not come with overlays, especially 3rd party games.
So that is the purpose of the touchpad on these controllers — to take the place of the custom button functions and layout for individual titles. Many of the "updated" original games will use this, as they aren't playable with only the side "Action" buttons.