Mattel’s Intellivision was my very first games console (I’m not counting Pong, because it wasn’t really a console per se) when I bought it in 1981 – or my parents bought it for me, I should clarify – and I’m seriously excited that Atari is resurrecting this classic ’80s piece of 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 the Sega Entertainment System. But as Atari says, the two great rivals are now friends.
If the name Intellivision escapes you – and it might well if you weren’t around in the 80s or have no interest in the history of games consoles – it’s an iconic console that features a black and gold finish with wood-effect trim. It also sported a pair of controllers that looked like telephones – old-fashioned landlines, as the coiled cord that attached the controller to the base Intellivision unit really looked like that of an eighties telephone.
That cord wouldn’t do any good these days, of course, which is why the Intellivision Sprint – which Atari produces in conjunction with Plaion (hats off to The Verge) – has wireless controllers that can be connected to the base unit for charging.
Other changes Atari made with the Sprint include the addition of an HDMI connector (naturally) and USB ports (for adding additional games, via USB, presumably). We’re not told what’s under the hood, but obviously it’ll be very different from what Mattel crammed in there in the ’80s.
What’s most striking about the Intellivision Sprint, however, is how fantastically unapologetic its look is compared to the original – and I love it for that. The other part of the equation here, of course, is games, and since this is a celebration of the Intellivision’s 45th anniversary, you already have 45 games on board. I remember all too well the many days I spent (or poorly spent, rather) playing the console in my youth.
Look on it
The mazes of Tron and this speech 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 coming from a Pong “dial”) and they actually worked quite well (the buttons could be a little finicky, mind you – I hope the Sprint fixes that).
The game library, however, was a slice of pure joy for me – okay, in a way just because it was a moon jump from Pong. But the Intellivision nonetheless retains some of my fondest gaming memories, and the reincarnation of the Sprint brings back some of those classics.
Tron Labyrinth-A-Tron was one of my favorites. It was a simple maze game at heart, as the name suggests, but with delicate nuances that made it strangely compelling, with its fascinating sound and the creepy master control program stalking me. Although perhaps the competition with my father, who was better than me at this game (in one way or another), was part of what kept me coming back for more.
Utopia was a strategy game way ahead of its time and one that I absolutely loved. Another game I played to death was B-17 bomberwhere you had to fly bombing missions in Europe, control the flight of your plane, aim bombs, and take the gunner’s seat to shoot down attacking enemy fighters, all with the very first speech in a game. (You had to buy a separate text-to-speech module, Intellivoice, to get the speech, and even though it was just rudimentary utterances, it amazed me.)
What people may not appreciate is how relatively important some of these games were for their time. They represented my very first experiences with strategy games. Of course, there were also arcade games, like Tronand sports classics too.
Utopia And B-17 bomber 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 Baseball, Chip Shot Super Pro Golf, Football, Super Pro Skiing, Tennis, And Super professional football.
Atari also has a few “fan-favorite arcade games” outside of Intellivision’s original classics, and that includes Rock racing (which was a much later port for the Mattel console).
The games all come with custom overlays 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 17, and will be released on December 5 in the United States and Australia, and December 23 in Europe. The price is $150 in the US and £100 in the UK. (And if you’re wondering about Amico – an earlier version of an Intellivision remake – after numerous delays, it’s unclear exactly what’s going on with that project these days, but what I’ve read online doesn’t seem very optimistic.)
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