Mattel’s Intellivision was my first ever games 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 be precise – and I’m seriously excited that Atari is reviving this classic piece of eighties hardware.
Yes, Atari – and if you don’t realize how strange this twist is, remember that this company was Mattel’s deadly 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 puts it, the two great rivals are now friends.
If the Intellivision name is lost on you – and it might be if you weren’t around in the eighties or don’t have an interest in gaming console history – it’s an iconic console that had a black-and-gold finish with wood-effect trim. It also had a pair of controllers that looked like phones—old-school landlines, that is, when the coiled cord that attached the controller to the base Intellivision unit really looked like it belonged on an eighties phone.
Of course, that wire wouldn’t do well these days, which is why the Intellivision Sprint—which Atari makes in conjunction with Plaion (hat tip to The Verge)—has wireless controllers that dock into the base unit for charging.
Other changes Atari has made with the Sprint include the addition of an HDMI connector (obviously) and USB ports (to add extra games, presumably via a USB stick). We won’t be told what’s under the hood, but it will obviously be completely different from what Mattel stuffed into the eighties.
The most striking thing about the Intellivision Sprint, however, is the way the look is stunningly unapologetic about the original – and I love it for that. The other part of the equation here is of course the games, and since this is a celebration of Intellivision’s 45th anniversary, you already get 45 games on board. I remember some all too well from the many days I spent (or mis-spent) playing the console in my youth.
Look at
Tron mazes and the voice synthesis module
Yes, the controllers took some getting used to – the Atari 2600 had a more traditional joystick, which was a better bet. But you acclimated to the Intellivision controllers (especially from a Pong disc) and they actually worked well enough (the buttons could be a bit finicky – hopefully something the Sprint will address).
The game library was a piece of pure joy for me though – granted, in some ways simply because it was a leap forward from Pong. But still, Intellivision holds some of my fondest early gaming memories, and the Sprint reincarnation brings back some of those classics.
Tron Maze-A-Tron was one of my favorites. It was a simple maze game at heart, as the name suggested, but with tricky nuances that somehow made it strangely compelling, with its mesmerizing sound and cool Master Control Program chasing me. Although the competition with my dad who was better than me at this game (somehow) may have been part of what 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 run bombing missions in Europe, control your plane’s flight, aim the bombs and take the gunner’s seat to shoot down attacking enemy fighters, all with the first ever speech in a game. (You had to buy a separate voice synthesis module, Intellivoice, to get the speech, and although it was only rudimentary utterances, it puzzled me.)
What people may not appreciate is how relatively weighty some of these games were at the time. They represented my very first experiences with strategy games. Of course there were also arcade games, e.g Throneand sports classics too.
Utopia and B-17 bomber is included in the game library for Sprint. The press release does not mention Thronebut we don’t get a complete list. There are plenty of sports games, including similar ones Baseball, Chip Shot Super Pro Golf, Soccer, Super Pro Skiing, Tennis, and Super Pro Football.
Atari also throws in some “fan-favorite arcade games” aside from the original Intellivision classics, and that includes Boulder Dash (which was a much later port to the Mattel console).
All of the games come with custom inserts for the controllers, and I’m seriously tempted to pull the trigger on this retro console this holiday season. The Intellivision Sprint will be available for pre-order on October 17th and will be released on 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 in case you were wondering about Amico—an earlier version of an Intellivision remake—after a series 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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