I was up way too late last night, because I played in a 180 player Sit-n-go tournament at PokerStars, to warm myself up for the World Poker Tour Invitational, which I play in later today at the Commerce Casino.
I finished tenth, one off the final table, when I made a great call with A9 against QT when I flopped a pair of nines and he pushed. Sadly, he paired his queen on the turn and I didn’t catch up on the river. I made $43 bucks for my trouble, though, a bunch of my WPBT friends sweated me through the whole thing, and I confirmed that my large-ish field tournament strategy is solid. I’ll take my iRiver with me to the tourney, and put together an audio diary for RFB #5.
Anyway, the tourney went super late, and I was wound up when it was done and didn’t settle down until well after midnight, so I ended up sleeping much later today than I normally do. I’m in a bit of a panic about hitting my various deadlines since I have two less hours to work with, but I wanted to point you all to this week’s Games of our Lives: Shark! Shark!
In the great console wars of the ’80s, Mattel’s Intellivision was
severely handicapped by its weird controllers and faux wood-grain
finish. The Atari 2600, though technologically inferior, had a lower
price, plus companies like Activision and Imagic cranking out tons of
future classics for the system. But in 1982, Intellivision released Shark! Shark!, a game that was so successful, it even caught Mattel’s marketing department off guard.
I loved playing Shark! Shark! and I’m going to do lots of Intellivision games for future columns. I wish I’d been able to get over its weird controllers and faux wood-grain finish — oh, and had the $299 to purchase one — back in the 1980s, because those Intellivision games rule.
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I get to make the first comment today 🙂 Woo hoo!
Two things on Intellivion.
There is a company here in CA that makes a game called INTELLIVION LIVES.
I believe that it is available on PS2, GAMECUBE and XBOX.
I hope to have it soon.
Secondly I did pick up an INTELLIVISON off of eBay before we moved which is now hidden in the garage in typical move fashion ;0
I would bet they are still available on eBay.
This is why I LOVE my Intellivision Lives! X-box game. Watching the reaction of my friends when I pull it out is CLASSIC.
I remember those heady days of Intellivision. My family had an Atari 2600 at home, which I loved and had for years. But when my cousins came to visit from Ohio, they always brought their Intellivision set with them. And I was filled with awe… and envy.
The graphics, the controls, the gameplay… everything was over the 2600 in a lot of ways. I never did own one, but I still recall with fond memories those days of playing video poker and baseball with my cousins until all hours of the night.
My Dad sold our old Intellivision at a garage sale about five years ago. Noooooo! My siblings and I had a heart attack. We still used to haul out the ol’ Dungeons and Dragon game at Christmas. *sniff* I miss it.
You’re in luck, Wil. There’s a shop called 4JAYS Video Games (in Antioch, up in the Bay Area) that’ll sell you an Intellivision Master Component for $84.95, including the RF cord, adapter, and Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack cartridge. It’s like 1980 all over again, at less than a third of the price! They also stock the accessories and games for it, at reasonable prices. If I had the money, I’d buy from them myself…
Dear Wil Wheaton:
I am a fellow blogger, sci-fi fan, podcaster and geek. I am listening to your audio version of, Just a Geek, and really enjoying it. I wrote to you via email several times and have received no response from you. I know understand how you must have felt when William F*cking Shatner dismissed you on the set of Star Trek V please don’t make a fan of yours feel that way towards you. I am also a writer and on the younger side at that, at 19 its hard to get people to take you seriously as you know. Would love to hear back from you.
Your fan.
Sebastian Prooth
http://tektrekgamer.blogspot.com
Damn, I love Shark, Shark!
I got one of those plug in Intellivision controller doohickeys with built in games. Can’t put it down.
I had all three incarnations of the Intellivision (I, II, and III), and to be honest, I never played Shark! Shark! My favorite game was probably Night Stalker. Damn that grey robot…
It appears you can legally download and play Shark! Shark on a PC here
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/download.shtml
-Jason
Also, having played it, there is a modern version here:
http://www.popcap.com/launchpage.php?theGame=feedingfrenzy&src=big8
-Jason
Night Stalker! Oh man, I still have nightmares, hiding in that little bunker thing. We had a couple of Intellevision II’s (i think, was a while ago) but I never played shark shark. Tron: Deadly Discs was a favorite of mine, and the whole family rallied around Snafu. It wasn’t till 15+ years later that I learned that Snafu was a real word, and I can’t hear it without thinking of the game.
Good luck tonight in the World Poker Tour Invitational!!!
Hi Wil!
I swear I am no stalker fan. Indeed, you are almost the first celebrity I’ve ever actually written to. (Though Don Johnson was just the dreamiest and I was all of 13 then, so cut me a break!).
In any case, it seems to me that I might still have a decent cache of Colecovision console, adaptors, Coleco games and Atari games, including the classic Barnstorming. I am so glad that someone is keeping the love alive. And if you wanted them, you could totally have them!
I was describing some of the best games to my middle school students today, and they totally rolled their eyes at me and said (in that 12-year-old voice you’ll know) BORING.
Apparently I’m not aging as gracefully as I thought!
Burger Time. Best Intellivision game ever. Spent hours mastering it. 15 years later I want to play it again on my PC. Anyone know where I can find a good PC version on the cheap?
Did a quick G-search:
http://www.classicgaming.com/rotw/btime.shtml
Have no idea to the quality or freedom from spy/ad-ware. Savvier folk could verify.
Love that Burgertime! Gonna try it when I get my test-bed PC set up, again. [Won’t risk my main ‘puter.]
Wil, when you talk about poker, it makes me feel the way most of my friends who aren’t Trekkies feel when I talk about Star Trek…LOL.
Don’t get me wrong, I love your storytelling abilities, but when you talk about poker, it’s somehow lost in the translation with me.
Now retro video games, that’s the sort of thing I can understand. And Monty Python. And even a little bit of D&D (I was into it very briefly during my High School days). But what I love most are the stories that you write about the time you spend with Anne and the boys.
I can’t wait until Do You Want Kids With That? comes out.
I saw you made it past the first day at the invitational. Awesome!
Hey Wil,
One of the drawbacks of Intellivision is higlighted this week on IGN.com:
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/690/690449p1.html
“Worst Game Controllers”
“#4 Intellivision Disk: Look, we understand that many system designers were shooting in the dark during the early days of videogames. I’m sure that a handheld controller that looked like a touch-tone phone appeared “Space Age Technology,” and the design even preceded the Nintendo D-pad by more than a half-decade…even offering more directional points than an 8-way controller could dream of having. But good luck figuring out if you’re pressing left or just slight up and left. And controller overlays? Work of the devil.”