You might be saying to yourself, “What on earth is that?!”. No, it’s not a strange telephone, it’s not a remote control pad box… it is in fact a video game console. But it’s not some pre-model Atari 2600. It’s the INTELLIVISION (actually, Intellivision II)! This is a console that most gamers don’t even remember and don’t even know about. Think back in the day before those handy red/white/yellow A/V plugs existed and video game controllers were far from ergo-friendly. This wonderful light grey box with remote-control-like game controllers attached by those phone cords that would tangle for days, brought me hours and hours of entertainment before I could even ride a bike. Using the black circular areas as a D-pad, two buttons on each side, and a whole numeric keypad for other actions, the Intellivision seemed truly advanced for it’s time. I actually spent more of my time watching my sister play (
as she had an extra 4 years of hand-eye coordination on me), but i knew right then that I was completely facinated with the whole concept of “video games”. Thank goodness for the internet because without it, I wouldn’t have been able to find (and play) some of my favorite old skool games for the Intellivion.

Dragonfire

Dreadful dragons control the King’s castle! Oh my! As a prince, you cross bridges to the castles, avoiding the dragon’s fire along the way. Once inside, you have to gather up all the treasures and head out while avoiding getting hit by the (yup you guessed it) dragonfire!

Burgertime
You’re a plump little chef and your goal is to eat away at the different layers of the burger. Once you eat one layer, it falls down 1 level until eventually, all burgers are made at the bottom. Do this while avoiding the dreadful egg, accompanied by his faithful sausage servants, and those nasty pickles on the later levels! Freeze them by spraying your limited amount of pepper! Gosh, that egg still haunts me…

Dracula

It’s night time which only means one thing. Dinner! Go around as either man or bat. You’re growing paler and slowing down, so you’ve gotta bite all the victims you can find - even if that means knocking on their doors. Then return to your resting place before sunrise, or you’ll never hunt again!

And seeing how advanced the Intellivision was, most games came with this overlay plastic sheet that went over the numeric part of the control pad. It was kind of a guide to the controls and special moves that you could do. Notice the “bite” vs. the “bite/zombie” buttons!

Sure, you may not be impressed by these 8-bit (or less) graphics, but bottom line is, they were fun. And they’re still fun! Sometimes I can’t help but saying, they just don’t make games like they used to.