Mattel’s Intellivision was my first game console (I’m not counting Pong because it wasn’t a proper console) when I bought it in 1981 – or, I should clarify, my parents bought it for me – and I’m very excited about the possibility of Atari reviving this classic eighties hardware.
Yes, Atari – and if you don’t realize how strange this turn of events is, remember that the company was Mattel’s mortal rival at the time with the Atari 2600. So the Atari Intellivision Sprint reboot is a bit like, say, the Nintendo Mega Drive or the Sega Entertainment System. But as Atari put it, the two great rivals are now friends.
If you don’t remember the name Intellivision – and you might have if you didn’t live in the 1980s or have no interest in gaming console history – it’s an iconic console with a black and gold finish and wood-effect trim. It also included a pair of controllers that looked like phones – old-style desk phones, as the coiled cable connecting the controller to the base Intellivision unit really looked like it belonged to a phone from the 1980s.
Of course, this cable would be of no employ today and therefore Intellivision Sprint – which Atari produces in cooperation with Plaion (hat tip to Edge) – has wireless controllers that can be docked to the base unit for charging.
Other changes Atari has made to the Sprint include the addition of HDMI (of course) and USB ports (presumably to add additional games via USB stick). We haven’t been told what’s under the hood, but it’s obviously going to be completely different from what Mattel crammed in the 1980s.
But what’s most striking about Intellivision Sprint is the way it looks so fantastically different from the original – and that’s why I love it. The other part of the equation is, of course, games, and since this is Intellivision’s 45th anniversary celebration, there are already 45 games on board. I remember some of them all too well from the many days I spent (or rather wasted) playing on the console in my youth.
Tron mazes and voice synthesis module
Yes, the controllers took some getting used to – the Atari 2600 had a more time-honored joystick, which was a better choice. But you get used to the Intellivision controllers (especially coming from Pong’s “dial”), and they actually worked well enough (the buttons can be a little finicky, mind you – hopefully that’s something Sprint will address).
The game library was a bit of pure joy for me though – in some ways simply because it was a moon leap over Pong. Still, Intellivision holds some of my fondest early gaming memories, and the Sprint reincarnation brings back some of those classics.
Tron Labyrinth-A-Tron was one of my favorites. It was uncomplicated maze game at heart, as the name suggested, but with insidious nuances that made it somehow strangely fascinating, with its mesmerizing sound and the spine-chilling Master Control Program that chased me. Although maybe competing with my dad, who was (somehow) better than me at this game, kept me coming back for more.
Utopia was a strategy game that was way ahead of its time and one that I absolutely loved. Another game I played to death was B-17 bomberwhere you had to conduct bombing missions in Europecontrolling the flight of your plane, aiming your bombs and taking the gunner’s seat to shoot down attacking enemy fighters, all with the first-ever in-game speech. (To get speech, you had to buy a separate voice synthesis module, Intellivoice, and even though it was just basic speech, it amazed me.)
People may underestimate how relatively essential some of these games were at the time. They represented my first experiences with strategy games. Of course, there were also arcade games, e.g Tronbut also sports classics.
Utopia AND B-17 bomber are included in Sprint’s game library. There is no mention of this in the press release Tronbut 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.
In addition to the original Intellivision classics, Atari will also add several “fan-favorite arcade games,” including Boulder Jump (which was a much later port for the Mattel console).
All games have custom controller inserts and I’m very tempted to pull the trigger on this retro console this holiday season. Pre-sale of Intellivision Sprint will be available from October 17, and the premiere will take place on December 5 in the US and Australia and on December 23 in Europe. The price is $150 in the US and £100 in the UK. (And if you’ve been wondering about Amico – the previous version of the Intellivision remake – after a whole slew of delays, it’s unclear what’s going on with that project right now, but what I’ve read online doesn’t sound too bullish.)
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