Classic Games from the Intellivision

Activision has gathered thirty of its most popular games from the eighties on one CD. For your playing pleasure, you will find the following: Armor Battle, Astrosmash, Auto Racing, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Checkers, Chess, Football, Frog Bog, Golf, Hockey, Hover Force, Poker and Blackjack, Night Stalker, Pinball, Sea Battle, Shark! Shark!, Sharp Shot, Skiing Snafu, Soccer, Space Armada, Space Battle, Space Hawk, Super Pro Volleyball, Stadium Mud Buggies, Star Strike, Sub Hunt, and Tennis. Whew!!!

If you grew up in the eighties, as I did, and you owned an Intellivision, as we did, these game names have to strike a familiar chord in your heart. Astrosmash (for the uninitiated, it is similar to Asteroids) and Space Armada (similar to Space Invaders) haven't changed a bit. Frog Bog shows that it's still fun to eat flies and dominate the lily pad. Snafu still makes me crazy when I get "boxed in" by another player. My daughter very much enjoys eating other "fish" in Shark! Shark! while she avoids being eaten herself.

The most interesting thing about this game is its inevitable nostalgia. It's great to be able to show my kids that games were much, much different when we were young. (My daughter is still in shock about the fact that there weren't "always" VCR's so the differences between these games and, say, Spyro, were obvious and mind-boggling.) Showing them the differences in technology and graphics (and being able to beat younger players at video games! ha!) was a lot of fun. The graphics and the games themselves haven't changed a bit. This collection also has useful coffee table appeal for anyone who grew up in the eighties. Chances are, at least one guest will have owned or played these games and you can all try your hand at regaining your former mastery.

The fact that there are thirty games in one package makes them a perfect purchase for the new game player. They seem to move more slowly and be calmer, somehow. Don't buy this to be impressed at how "real it feels," you will be disappointed. Buy it to step back in time to a much simpler time! and while you're at it, you can always tell those stories about how you had to walk six miles uphill to school in the snow!