Mattel's Intellivision was my first gaming console (I'm not counting Pong, as it was hardly a proper console) when I bought it back in 1981 – or my parents bought it for me, I should clarify – and I'm seriously excited about Atari reviving this classic eighties hardware.
Yes, Atari – and if you don't understand how strange this turn of events is, remember that the company at the time was a deadly competitor to Mattel with the Atari 2600. So, the Atari Intellivision Sprint reboot is a bit like, say, the Nintendo Mega Drive or Sega Entertainment System. But according to Atari, the two main rivals are now friends.
If the name Intellivision is lost on you (and it might well be if you weren't alive in the eighties or weren't interested in the history of video game consoles), it's an iconic console with a black and gold finish and woodgrain finish. It also had a pair of controllers that looked like phones – old-style landline phones, as the twisted cord connecting the controller to the Intellivision base unit really looked like it belonged on a phone from the eighties.
Of course, this cord would be useless these days, so the Intellivision Sprint, which Atari produces in collaboration with Plaion (hat tip Edge) – has wireless controllers that can be connected to the base unit for charging.
Other changes Atari made to Sprint include the addition of HDMI (naturally) and USB ports (presumably for adding more games via USB storage). We're not told what's under the hood, but it's obviously going to be very different from what Mattel stuffed in there in the eighties.
What's most striking about the Intellivision Sprint, however, is that the look is fantastically unapologetic when compared to the original – and I love it for that. The other part of the equation, of course, is games, and since this is Intellivision's 45th anniversary celebration, you already get 45 games on board. I remember all too well some of the many days I spent (or rather wasted) playing console games in my youth.
Labyrinths of the Throne and voice synthesis module
Yes, the controllers took some getting used to – the Atari 2600 had a more traditional joystick, which was a better choice. But you got acclimated to the Intellivision controllers (especially from the Pong “dial”) and they actually worked quite well (the buttons can be a little finicky, mind you – hopefully Sprint will fix that).
The library of games, however, was a piece of pure joy for me – in some ways, simply because it was a moonshot over Pong. Still, Intellivision holds some of my fondest early gaming memories, and Sprint's reincarnation brings back some of those classic games.
Tron Labyrinth-A-Tron was one of my favorites. It was simple maze game at heart, as the name suggests, but with sly nuances that made it somehow strangely compelling, with its mesmerizing sound and terrifying Master Control program haunting me. Although maybe competing with my dad, who was better than me at the game (somehow), was part of what kept me coming back for more.
Utopia was a strategy game well ahead of its time and one that I really liked. Another game I played to death was B-17 bomberwhere did you have to conduct bombing missions in Europecontrolling the flight of your plane, aiming bombs and taking the gunner's seat to shoot down attacking enemy fighters, all with the help of the game's first speech. (I had to buy a separate Intellivoice voice synthesis module to get the speech, and even though it was just rudimentary utterances, it amazed me.)
What people may not appreciate is how relatively significant some of these games were for their time. They represented my very first experience with strategy games. Of course there were arcade games too, such as Throneand sports classics too.
Utopia And B-17 bomber included in the Sprint library of games. Not mentioned in the press release Thronebut we don't get a complete list. There are many sports games, including such as Baseball, Chip Shot Super Pro Golf, Football, Super Pro Skiing, Tennis, And Super professional football.
Atari is also adding some “fan-favorite arcade games” beyond the original Intellivision classics, including Boulder Dash (this was a much later port for the Mattel console).
All the games come with dedicated controller inserts, and I'm excited to pull the trigger on this retro console this holiday season. Intellivision Sprint pre-orders will be available on October 17th, releasing December 5th in the US and Australia, and December 23rd in Europe. The price is $150 in the US and £100 in the UK. (And if you're interested in Amiko – previous look at the Intellivision remake – after a number of delays, it's unclear what's going on with this project these days, but what I've read online doesn't sound very encouraging.)
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