Before Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft were battling it out, other corporations had their interests in the console gaming world. These game's were no where near as big as they are today, but they had their market and the home consoles were really fought between the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision system. With Atari working on a 2600 compilation for the PS2, it's probably not a major surprise that the Intellivision has come back with a PS2 set of games. This title is purely for those who remember the system and want to play the games again, and it is that market which will take to the game the most.

Normally in a compilation product we individually talk about the games but unfortunately (or fortunately for those who purchase it) it comes with sixty games and you'd be reading for quite a while. Intellivision did divide its games into a number of categories however so we will break down the styles of each category and list some of the games within as well as talk about the overall layout of the game and how it plays on the PS2 console.

Space:

The space games were probably the most popular around the time because of Space Invaders. While you won't find that particular game in the package, you will find a number of rip offs. In fact it's amazing that these companies did not get sued for plagiarism. A game very much like Asteroids is also included except instead of a spaceship a man is used as the character. Some of the games do have some depth like having to plan battles before taking on enemies but other then that it's really just run of the mill stuff except for the first true 3d game of space combat.

Sports:

Ah the sports genre, one of the most popular. Basically if you like a sport it's in this game, from soccer through to wrestling. The only issue we have is that some games require two players (AI wasn't big back then) but other than that the sports games are not bad. There are also games you won't find today such as Ten Pin Bowling which actually has depth in terms of weight of ball and slickness of the wood. Golf is also included with two games, and one can give a gameboy a run for its money. These games are quite good and have some highlights.

Arcade:

Considering arcade games were big around the time of the Intellivision it's no surprise that quite a few made the cut for the game. There are some games where you defuse bombs with sequences of key presses, spray bees, early attempts for pinball games, swim underwater, a boxes style game with a penguin and others.

Combat:

This category again suffers from too many two player only games but offers you the chance to fly B17 bombers, battle against each other in tanks, use a chopper, use a submarine and various others. They do have one trait still in today's combat games and that is the controls are not easy to use, and the games are not easy to play.

There are three other categories; unreleased, gaming and kids, which are made up of card games and games for kids under the topic of education. The six games unreleased are made up of demo cartridges which is actually only a movie, a light technical demo and a pool game. Not a great reason to buy the title really unless you really want to see the demo etc. There is however some really decent style to this game. First of all every game comes with the 'plate' that was used on the actual controller to help people play, something that could be used on today's games extremely well. Pressing select brings it up and makes playing the games much easier. The game in terms of style replicates Space Invaders Anniversary where you visit a pizza place and play on the various machines.

Intellivision Lives is probably not a great game for those who have never used the system or played extremely old Intellivision games because the graphisc and gameplay are very basic and dated. As a collection of a famous game system it succeeds but whether it's a good value purchase is up to the player.