The year was 1980 and the card on the large, wrapped package said it was for me and brother from my late aunt and uncle. The box was almost bigger than I was, then 7 years old. Someone asked me to guess what it was, and I wished more than anything it was an Intellivision. But the system cost somewhere around $200, and kids my age didn't get $200 presents. So I withheld my guess until we tore into the package, and sure enough there it was: a brand-spanking-new Intellivision, the cream of the crop in high-tech video games.
Over the years, I would buy myself an Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Colecovision, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and, finally, Playstation 2. Still, nothing came close to topping Intellivision in terms of that sudden realization that I held in my hands the ultimate source of euphoria. (Intellivision would, of course, be replaced first by beer and then by sex as that ultimate source.)
I mastered the sports games, including Baseball (the difference between a home run and a single that stuck to the edge of the screen was purely a judgment call by the God of Intellevision), Football (9-9-1-9 and 9-9-2-9 were play calls for a bomb to the two eligible receivers), Skiing (I'd never even been skiing, but I was flying down mountains like an Olympian), Bowling (gimme the 16-pounder, man, those lighter balls are for wussies), Soccer, Basketball and Hockey.
Today's games are so sophisticated that sometimes I play them twice, give up, toss them on the shelf, and see if there's any porn in my e-mail box. Not so in the early '80s, when I devoured each game, when there were only a couple of buttons to press and maybe an alligator to swim past. Unlike Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (which I now own), there were no hookers to bludgeon, no cops to decapitate, no gangers to spray with automatic weapons. In so many ways, it was much better then. But I guess it's never as good as Christmas Day when you're 7.
• Screenshots/descriptions of Intellivision's sports games
• Screenshots/descriptions of Intellivision's action games
• Intellivision exhibition
Here is what I think is pathetic - I have an Xbox with a number of sweet games...yet my friends and I are spending more time downloading Nintendo 8-bit emulators and playing Tecmo and other such marvels, than playing the newest games. Maybe your old system will make a comeback for you also. Nothing beats the classics.
Posted by CEB at December 26, 2002 12:13 PM