Intellivision's 'Utopia'

Brundlefly · February 19, 2004, 12:22

Before Nintendo, Playstation, and Sega, there was Atari, Colecovision, and Intellivision. I owned an Intellivision when I was a kid. One of my favorite games was a precursor to Civ, and probably why I am addicted to Civ now, called 'Utopia', created in 1981.

You and your opponent each have an island to rule. You can be an agressive and militaristic dictator go to war against the other island or you can peacefully manage food, housing and industries that determine the welfare of your people but you can not manage natural disasters. And if welfare drop some people may turn into rebels. The score is determined by a number of factors that make up the welfare on your island.

The thing I used to hate the most were the frequent hurricanes which would wipe out stuff you would build.

The game was pushed by a modest marketing campaing but still sold some 250.000 copies witch made it one of the more successfull Intellivision games.

Utopia is sometimes referred to as “Civilization 0.5”.

Here are some screenshots of Utopia:

Boris Godunov · February 19, 2004, 12:29

Flashback.

I loved this game. There's nothing quite like watching in terror as that hurricane heads towards your precious buildings.

The other Intellivision games I loved were B-17 Bomber, Dungeons & Dragons and the one where you moved fleets of ships around islands to attack opponents.

Dis · February 20, 2004, 03:56

Intellivsion was for weenies

Commodore 64 was a man's gaming machine

Jamski · February 20, 2004, 05:11

I have to say I used to look on the kids that got Intellevison for Xmas with scorn and derision

-Jam

GhengisFarb™ · February 20, 2004, 07:27

You can still see the resentment of the Intellivision losers cause they didn't even mention the c-64 in their list of systems.

Brundlefly · February 20, 2004, 10:19

Whoa. I think you people are kind of harsh. Intellivision is all we could afford. Are you flaming me because I was poorer than you?! F*ck off! Eventually, we were able to get a C-64 with a souped-up floppy drive, and yes, the C-64 games were better, but for a while, Intellivision ruled at our house.

Boris, the AD&D game was good, but Tron was even better.

GhengisFarb™ · February 20, 2004, 10:20

My C-64 was actually priced a little cheaper than the Intellivision.

Brundlefly · February 20, 2004, 10:23

Quote:

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
My C-64 was actually priced a little cheaper than the Intellivision.

Brand new, that might have been the case. We got our Intellivision pre-owned, though...

asleepathewheel · February 20, 2004, 10:53

I got a used intellivision as well.

but I can't remmeber the games I had, one seems like the DnD thing and I think I had some genero tron game.

good times

MattH · February 20, 2004, 11:08

Christ you people can start an arguement over nothing.

NO ONE CARES IF YOU DON'T LIKE INTELEVISION!

I know it's a cliche, but if you don't have anything to add to the thread don't post in it.

Boris Godunov · February 20, 2004, 13:33

We got out Intellivision through an uncle as a present, and we also had an Atari 2600 and Apple IIe computer. So it wasn't like we were lacking in the hardware department.

Regardless, the Intellivision had some wonderfully creative games on it, and it actually had voices in the games, unlike other systems at the time. It was in many ways pretty sophisticated.

Dis · February 21, 2004, 04:29

Quote:

Originally posted by bfg9000
Whoa. I think you people are kind of harsh. Intellivision is all we could afford. Are you flaming me because I was poorer than you?! F*ck off! Eventually, we were able to get a C-64 with a souped-up floppy drive, and yes, the C-64 games were better, but for a while, Intellivision ruled at our house.

Boris, the AD&D game was good, but Tron was even better.

C-64's were cheap, at least after they've been out a while. We got ours for $200. And we were dirt poor. We had to by it with the lay-away program. It took a while before we had enough money to take it home. And then we only had the tape deck. It was a while longer before we had the floppy disk drive.

As for the Intellivision, to be honest, I have never actually seen one, nor known someone who had one. I have no idea what games were on it.

The only systems I actually seen as a kid were the Atari 2600. As for actual computers I have seen many. C64, Vic20, Commodore PET (we actually used these in computer science in my middle school

), Apple II computers, TSR-80's.

bipolarbear · February 23, 2004, 16:37

they should make more games liek that.

Brundlefly · March 3, 2004, 11:55

If you would like to see any more screen shots of your favorite Intellivision games go here: http://www.vgmuseum.com/intellivision.htm