Utopia (Intellivision) (feat. Jordan) - Let's Play 1001 Games - Episode 413

Channel:

Gaming Jay

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7,410

Published on July 15, 2019 1:00:10 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faf7Zuq0SR4

Game:

Utopia (1981)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 33:43

3,579 views

69

Jordan and Jay go head-to-head in perhaps the first RTS game ever!

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I'm Gaming Jay: Youtube gamer, let's player, fan of retro games, and determined optimist... Join me in this series while I try out EACH of the video games in the book 1001 VIDEO GAMES YOU MUST PLAY BEFORE YOU DIE, before I die. The game review for each game will focus on the question of whether you MUST play this game before you die. But to be honest, the game review parts are just for fun, and are not meant to be definitive, in depth reviews; this series is more about the YouTube gamer journey itself. From Mario games to the Halo series, from arcade games to Commodore 64, PC games to the NES and Sega Genesis, Playstation to the Xbox, let's play those classic retro games that we grew up with, have fond memories of, or heard of but never got a chance to try! And with that said, the game review for today is...

Utopia
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(video_game)

Utopia is a 1981 strategy video game by Don Daglow released for the Intellivision and Mattel Aquarius. It is often regarded as among the first city building games and god games. A turn-based strategy game with some real-time elements,[1][2][3] it is credited as "arguably the earliest ancestor of the real-time strategy genre."[4] In July 2010, the game was re-released on Microsoft's Game Room service for its Xbox 360 console and for Games for Windows Live.

Utopia is a two-player game in which the two players each control one of the game's two islands. It lacks an AI opponent, although a single player can play to achieve a high score and ignore the other island. When starting the game, the players may choose how many rounds to play (up to 50) and the length of each round (30 to 120 seconds). The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the game.[5]

Each player rules their own island and uses the controller disc to move a rectangular cursor around the screen. Both players spend gold bars to construct different buildings (houses, schools, factories, hospitals and forts) on their islands, build fishing boats or PT boats, or to fund rebel activity on the enemy island. As each island's population grows, the ruler is responsible for housing their people, feeding their populace and keeping them happy, or else risk rebel activity, which decreases the player's score and sometimes destroys buildings. Income is generated when randomly generated rain clouds, (and sometimes hurricanes) pass over a player's farms, when a fishing boat is positioned over a school of fish, and at the end of each turn, based on the player's factory output and fishing boats.[5]

Most rounds consist of constructing a building, then continuously maneuvering the player's fishing boat over a moving school of fish in order to maintain fishing income, with occasional interruptions to construct new buildings whenever the player is able to afford them. Alternatively, the player in the lead might spend considerable time maneuvering a PT boat to try and sink the losing player's fishing boat in order to keep their income down. Game algorithms generate and determine the course of rain clouds, tropical storms, hurricanes, schools of fish, and pirate ships.

GameSpy included Utopia in its Hall of Fame in 2004, commenting': "Considering the state of home video-game technology in 1981, Utopia is an astonishingly detailed simulation."[3] GameSpot featured Utopia in its series Unsung Heroes: Ground Breaking Games, calling it a "surprisingly complex game (often referred to as 'Civilization 0.5') [that] laid the foundation for PC sim classics such as Civilization and SimCity."[6] In 2012, Utopia has been included in the Smithsonian Institution's "The Art of Video Games" exhibition.[7]

Utopia was a turn-based strategy game with some real-time elements.[1][2][3] Ars Technica cites Utopia as being the "birth of a genre", stating that its "real-time element" was "virtually unheard of", and that it is thus "arguably the earliest ancestor of the real-time strategy genre".[4] Matt Barton and Bill Loguidice say it "helped set the template for the real-time strategy genre",[8] but has "more in common with SimCity than it does with Dune II and later RTS games."[9] Brett Weiss argues that "[m]ost experts consider Utopia" to be "the first real-time strategy game."

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