Introduction:Feel like a walk down memory lane? Intellivision Lives! Is a title that is going to appeal to old school gamers who used to have the Intellivision console or had played the system, back in the day.

The Game:Crave Entertainment has brought back a piece of nostalgia for all old school gamers with the 60 classic console games from the Intellivision console. Intellivision in the early 80's was overshadowed by the now infamous Atari. Just like the console wars of today between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo there was a triangle of competition between the classic consoles of the 1980's including Intellivision, Atari and Collecovision. Intellivision came in the market offering an innovative way to game with their unique number pad gamepad and released a whole slew of games for the platform. If you're not familiar with the system, Crave added an interesting video on the history of Intellivision into the game which is pretty interesting. Intellivision is back from the days of the zipper challenged red 'plether' jackets and little cubes from Rubik to entertain a new generation of gamers.

Intellivision Lives! Is a collection of 60 classics which stay true to their original form. There is something for everyone and the interface categorizes the different types of games by putting them in classic arcade boxe form. Intellivision Lives! has a wide variation of titles stretching from sports games, to arcade shooters, to card games. Like I mentioned before, there is something for everyone and it will take you a while to investigate all the different corners of this reborn virtual Pizzeria. Three of my favorites would have to be Thunder Castle where you slay creatures while you travel through a forest to the castle and into its dungeon. Shark Shark where you control a fish that has to eat smaller fish in the ocean while avoiding the larger fish and the dreaded shark. As your little fish continues to eat his size will grow allowing you to eat larger and larger fish. Lastly Night Stalker which is similar to Thunder Castle keeping the player locked in a maze having to shoot evil creatures and robots. One cool concept about the game is that you have to be facing the direction you want to shoot and you will also have to reload you weapon when it runs out of ammo which can add for some frenzied claustrophobic dashes.

None of the classic Intellivision games are going to blow your mind and make you forget Pandora Tomorrow is being released this year. Although Intellivision is dated the games still hold out and most importantly are fun which is the foundation of great gaming.

Graphics & Sound:How can you rate the graphics of an obsolete machine? Its simple you can't. In the time frame that Intellivision was born tried to keep a graphical edge over its competition. In old ad campaigns, Intellivision showed comparison screens between their games and Atari's showcasing Intellivision superior offerings. One thing these older games can remind us that graphics don't make the game and you can still have fun without all the bitmapping razzmatazz. It makes me wonder if in ten years down the road our mighty Xbox will look the same as the Intellivision system in retrospect.

Whoa! Now the sound in Intellivison Lives is something to talk about! The sound effects are great and emulate the gaming sounds of yester year to perfection, all the bleeps and blips are intact. That's not the part that will snag your ears; the strangest music ever compiled in a game has to be the wacked out music in Intellivison Lives! The only way to describe it is to blend all different styles of music over a creepy robot voice caught in loops. It's definitely influenced by drugs, its strange, it's bizarre, but it's sure not boring. It's one of those things that have to be heard to truly understand.

Innovation:You should be ready from some major surprises in Intellivison Lives! This is the new leader of the perfect drugged out game? We at Extreme Gamer don't condemn illegal narcotics, but if you happen to be accidentally inflicted by the chemicals I would say throw this baby would be better than the bedroom clock. I wasn't joking earlier that the soundtrack is bizarre because it oozes strangeness. There are two ways to play this game (Sound On = With Drugs) or (Sound Off = Normal Harmony) take your pick youth of the world.

Mojo:Ah! Sometimes memories are better left in your head. Trust me, the memories the games hold is more precious then what you'll find in this box. There is some nostalgic mojo brewing in the audio strangeness of Intellivision Lives which unfortunately has a hard time living up to the hype.

Lowdown:Intellivision Lives! Is made for a specific crowd and if you're a member of the old school gaming days this will spark some old memories of the dawn of the videogames. The collection of games isn't bad, but most will become bored in a day or two and turn back their beautiful bitmaps and physic engine spoils.

Gameplay: 7, Graphics/Sound: 6, Innovation: 5, Mojo: 5. Final: 6