Mattel’s Intellivision was my first gaming console (I’m not counting Pong, as it wasn’t a proper console) when I bought it in 1981 (or my parents bought it for me, I should clarify) and I’m very excited about Atari resurrecting this classic piece of ’80s hardware.
Yes, Atari, and if you don’t realize how strange this turn of events is, remember that this 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 Sega Entertainment System. But as Atari says, the two great rivals are now friends.
If the name Intellivision escapes you – and it well might if you weren’t around in the ’80s or have no interest in the history of games consoles – it’s an iconic console that featured a black and gold finish with wood-effect trim. It also sported a pair of controllers that looked like telephones – old-style landlines, that is, as the coiled cable connecting the controller to the base Intellivision unit really looked like it belonged on a telephone from the 1980s.
That cable wouldn’t be any good today, of course, which is why the Intellivision Sprint, which Atari is producing in conjunction with Plaion (tip to The Verge), has wireless controllers that can be attached to the base unit for charging.
Other changes Atari has made with the Sprint include the addition of an HDMI connector (naturally) and USB ports (for adding additional games, via a USB stick, presumably). We’re not told what’s under the hood, but it’s obviously going to be quite different from what Mattel put in there in the ’80s.
The most striking thing about the Intellivision Sprint, however, is the way its appearance is unapologetic to the original, and I love it for that. The other part of the equation here, of course, is the games, and since this is a celebration of Intellivision’s 45th anniversary, you already have 45 games on board. I remember some very well of the many days I spent (or rather wasted) playing the console in my youth.
Look
Tron mazes and that voice synthesis module.
Yes, the controllers took a while to get used to – the Atari 2600 had a more traditional joystick, which was a better bet. But you got acclimated to the Intellivision controllers (especially coming from a Pong ‘dial’) and they actually worked pretty well (the buttons can be a little finicky, hopefully something Sprint will fix).
The game library, however, was a slice of pure joy for me, in a way simply because it was a moonshot from Pong. But still, Intellivision holds some of my most cherished early gaming memories, and Sprint’s reincarnation is bringing back some of those classics.
Tron Labyrinth-A-Tron It was one of my favorites. At its core, it was a simple maze game, as the name suggests, but with complicated nuances that made it somehow strangely appealing, with its fascinating sound and the chilling Master Control Program chasing me. Although maybe the competition with my dad, who was better than me at this game (in some ways), was part of what kept me coming back for more.
Utopia It was a strategy game very ahead of its time and I loved it. Another game I played to death was B-17 bomberwhere you had to execute bombing missions over Europe, control the flight of your plane, aim bombs and take the gunner’s seat to shoot down attacking enemy fighters, all with the first speech in a game. (You had to buy a separate speech synthesis module, Intellivoice, to get the speech, and even though they were just rudimentary expressions, I was surprised.)
What people may not appreciate is how relatively important some of these games were for the time. They represented my first experiences with strategy games. Of course, there were also arcade games, such as tronand sports classics too.
Utopia and B-17 bomber They are included in the Sprint game library. The press release does not mention tronbut we don’t get a complete list. There are many sports games, including games like Baseball, Chip Shot Super Pro Golf, Soccer, Super Pro Skiing, Tennis, and Super professional football.
Atari is also releasing some “fan-favorite arcade games” in addition to the original Intellivision classics, and that includes rock race (which was a much later port for the Mattel console).
All games come with custom inlays for the controllers, and I’m seriously tempted to pull the trigger on this retro console this holiday season. Intellivision Sprint will be available for pre-order on October 17, out December 5 in the US and Australia, and December 23 in Europe. The price is $150 in the US and £100 in the UK. (And if you were wondering about Amico, an older version of a new version of Intellivision, after a lot of delays, it’s unclear what’s going on with that project these days, but what I’ve read online doesn’t sound very hopeful.)
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