Reviews
Lock ‘n’ Chase Review: Pac-Man with a Getaway Plan
A robber, four cops and doors you slam and lock behind you: Data East’s heist maze game is the thinking player’s Pac-Man rival, converted superbly by Mattel.
Author: Sal Benedetto
From the Vault columnist. Grew up feeding quarters to the Ms. Pac-Man machine at his uncle's pizza place; still owns his childhood SNES and every Nintendo Power he ever begged his mother for. Writes the retrospectives and the hidden-gem hunts.
Reviews
Space Spartans Review: Star Raiders with a Voice
A sector map, starbases under siege and a talking ship’s computer reporting your damage: the fullest space-campaign game on any console of its generation.
Reviews
Bomb Squad Review: Defusing a Bomb by Ear
A scrambled code, a damaged circuit board and a bomb that heckles you through the Intellivoice: a voice-guided logic-and-dexterity thriller with no equivalent on any rival system.
Reviews
B-17 Bomber Review: The Intellivoice Flight Sim That Talks You Home
Five stations, real fuel-and-bomb arithmetic and a crew calling bandits by clock position: Mattel’s voice-directed bombing simulation is one of the most ambitious cartridges of 1982.
Reviews
Shark! Shark! Review: Eat or Be Eaten, 1982 Style
A small fish, an honest food chain and a shark you can eventually turn and bite: Ji-Wen Tsao’s eat-to-grow original is the Intellivision at its most charming and cunning.
Reviews
Utopia Review: The 1981 Strategy Game That Invented a Genre
Don Daglow’s two-island governing game scored welfare, not conquest — and quietly founded the god game, the management sim and half of real-time strategy in a single 1981 cartridge.
Reviews
Tron Deadly Discs Review: Mattel’s Movie Tie-In Masterpiece
Tron alone in the arena, a disc that attacks and blocks, and the keypad control scheme of 1982: the licensed game that outlived its licence to become an all-time arena classic.
Reviews
Night Stalker Review: The Maze Shooter That Out-Scared Berzerk
A bunker, a missing gun, escalating robots and a heartbeat in the dark: Steve Montero’s 1982 maze shooter remains the Intellivision’s purest exercise in tension.
Reviews
BurgerTime Intellivision Review: The Definitive Home Version
Peter Pepper, killer groceries and the best arcade conversion of its generation: why Mattel’s Intellivision BurgerTime is still the home version every other port is judged against.
Reviews
Astrosmash Review: The Million-Selling Shooter That Defined a Console
John Sohl’s fixed shooter sold a million copies and became the pack-in: falling meteors, spinning bombs, a score that punishes you, and the smoothest cannon on any 1981 console.