intellivision

After my best friend in Minneapolis, Alan Polk, got an Atari 2600 in 1979, my 7-year-old self spent most of his energy coming up with reasons why he needed to go over to Alan's house. Roles then reversed when I got Intellivision a year later and my basement became the place to be. We spent hours playing Intellivision hockey and skiing (we were in snowy Minnesota after all), Major League Baseball, BurgerTime, Night Stalker, and Tron Deadly Discs. These 16-bit games, along with Intellivision's cool controllers with their telephone-like keypad and each game's keypad overlay, were clearly superior to Atari's 8-bit offerings and clumsy joystick in our collective estimation.

When I hear people talk about old Atari games, I always think of Intellivision. While they were playing Breakout and Yars' Revenge, I was wearing out Intellivision controller overlays. So, when I saw Scott Stein's video about the Atari Arcade for iPad, I wondered if such a thing existed for Intellivision. My search didn't reveal any hardware peripherals, but it did turn up an app that gives you six Intellivision games. From MTV Networks, the app is titled VH1 Classic Presents: Intellivision for iPad. The iPad app costs $2.99 and features Astrosmash, Chip Shot Super Pro Golf, Night Stalker, Skiing, Thin Ice, and Thunder Castle. There is an iPhone app, too. It's free but only includes Astrosmash, with the other five games each available for 99 cents.… Read more