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Same Game & Robots has the distinction of being one of the few Intellivoice-enhanced titles for Intellivision. It is also a very addicting title composed of two games: Same Game and Robots. Both games require strategy and planning and both will keep you coming back for more. In Same Game the goal is to clear a board full of pieces that come in three shapes. Connect as many of any one type of shape to clear them from the board and score points. As you clear shapes, the remaining ones will realign themselves until no more combinations are possible. One cool aspect of the game as that when you score, you see the points float from the game board to the score board on the right of the screen. Same Game has two variations to choose from, each with its own set of rules. If you use an Intellivoice, you will hear how many pieces are on the board, a rating of your score (i.e., great, super, excellent), your final score, and quitting early. In Robots, the goal is to destroy all the robots on the screen by making them collide with each other, by using bombs, or having the robots hit scrap found on the board. You and the robots take turns moving one step at a time. You can use hyperspace jumps to move to a random location on the board and bombs to destroy nearby robots. If your robot is reached by any of the other robots, the game ends. Robots is also Intellivoice enhanced and tells you how many robots are on the board, the level completed and your score. With either game you can choose what music you want to hear while playing. Same Game and Robots is another winner for Intellivision and another excellent title for your collection.

Have you ever wanted to be a secret agent? Wait no longer as you can now be one and challenge Mr. Andreas Skarfos, a.k.a. “Scarfinger!” The mission is not simple. Two agents have already tried to deal with Mr. Skarfos and they have not returned. You are the only person who can stop him before he unleashes the nuclear warheads the island he seized in the Mediterranean. You can save the world! Attacking the island through the surface is not possible for it is invulnerable. If you are to succeed in your mission, you must traverse mountains and the sea to reach an underground tunnel that leads to the island’s reactor. This is what you must destroy if you are to save the world. Scarfinger is another excellent IntelligentVision title for the Intellivision. The graphics are colorful and each area that you must traverse is quite different from the other. The one constant is the center display which provides useful information at each stage. Around the mountains, the display will give you your speed, RPMs, and great of the motorcycle you are driving. Over the sea it gives you the speed and number of torpedoes on your jetski (don’t ask how you carry those on a jetski), and in the tunnel it tells you the number of anti-matter bolts you have left. In between each phase there is an information screen that gives you the score and bonus points received. Scarfinger offers good fun with a variety of challenges and enemies in each sector.

As its very “esoteric” names implies, Skiing is about, well, skiing down the slopes of mountains. The goal of the game is to get the best time skiing down two different courses: downhill and slalom. You can play alone or you can invite up to five more friends to enjoy the mountain slopes. When competing with other friends, players take turns skiing down the selected course three times to achieve the best time. Whoever has the best time by the end is the winner. The mountains are all snow covered and there are gates that you must cross as you go down the slopes. You must avoid the beautifully rendered evergreen trees that cover the mountains and you must be careful to jump the moguls (mounds of snow) you may find in the courses. Of the two courses, the downhill slopes are the best to achieve speed. The slalom course is very difficult because the gates are very close to each other and even making sharp turns (which you achieve by pressing the upper action buttons) won’t let you maintain speed. Achieving good times requires that you learn to handle the controls properly so you know when to do the turns in a way that will maximise your speed. Learning the courses through repeated play will also help you anticipate your moves and improve your time. If you do hit gates, they fall (making you lose time) and if you hit any trees or moguls you end up sprawled on the floor! Of course, you get back up quickly to continue the course but you lose precious time as a result. When you reach the end of the course, there is a nice “finish” line and you are applauded before you go back to the top to try the course again. This is a fun game that is good to enjoy with friends.

With the success of Space Invaders in the arcade and on the Atari 2600, Mattel needed to have a game that would offer similar gameplay to Intellivision owners. That game is Space Armada. In Space Armada there are four rows of menacing aliens (32 aliens in total) that are attacking your gunship. You are armed with your trusty laser to tear the aliens to pieces and you have three ground-based barriers that give you some protection from their relentless attack. In addition to the aliens, there are red alien spaceships that taunt you as they move from one side of the screen to the other (they are both quick and silent as they cross the screen). Destroy these ships for bonus points! You must destroy all the aliens and prevent them from getting to the ground because, once they do, it is game over! If you manage to destroy all the aliens, a new wave of attackers comes so you can start again. These new waves of attackers can be smarter than the previous wave and may even have unexpected new weapons to attack you. Also be mindful about the ground-based barriers as the enemy fire will chip away at them until they become useless. Unlike what happens in Space Invaders, where these barriers are restored for each new wave of enemies, the barriers stay destroyed on Space Armada. The other weird thing that happens is that the aliens actually overlap with the barriers if they get low enough, that just looks plain wrong. Unfortunately, Space Armada is not a very good clone of Space Invaders. There are far too many enemies on screen so the aliens move down rather quickly unless you make a good effort at clearing each column of aliens to keep them from advancing. You find yourself trying to decide whether to attack the side columns or bottom row of aliens as they continue their relentless attack. You also cannot neutralise the alien weapons fire like you can in Space Invaders. That would have been of strategic value if available. The game does introduce some interesting elements (partially invisible rows of aliens, different enemy weapons) but it is not enough to make this a great game.

If you played liked Moon Patrol either on the arcade or on a home system, you are going to love Space Patrol. Rather than a port, Space Patrol is a clone that takes the elements of Moon Patrol to a new level. So much so, that it is hard to believe you are dealing with an Intellivision game! You are in control of a planetary rover as you move over the surfaces of the Moon, Mars, Pluto, and Mercury to protect mankind’s outposts from alien hordes and bands of smugglers. As you move over the planetary (or lunar) surfaces, you must avoid perils on the ground as well as the attacks of your enemies. Your enemies will come from above and may try to catch you from behind. Some will even drop bombs to create craters so you crash and lose a life! Of course, your rover is equipped with both vertical and horizontal laser canons and an antigravity booster so you can shoot or jump as you traverse the terrain to accomplish your mission. In addition, you have an information dashboard that flashes up a caution sign in blue for danger from behind, pink for danger from up ahead, and green for danger from above. This dashboard also lets you know which checkpoints you have crossed as you move over the surface of each space body. There are 26 checkpoints in total (labelled A through Z) and when you cross certain checkpoints an information screen compares your time against a benchmark and awards bonus points if you beat that benchmark time. With its beautiful graphics, superb animations, and in-game music, Space Patrol is definitely among the top titles for the Intellivision. Certainly one for the collection! Now go shoot some aliens!

On this unique, one-player game for the Intellivision you play the role of Spina, a bee who has been tasked by the queen bee with collecting pollen from the roses and sunflowers in the field. Simple enough a task except the environment isn’t very rosy (see what I did?). Spiders and dragon flies are other bugs that will do what they can to prevent you from doing your job while water puddles and rain drops will make flying around a difficult task. In Spina you only have one bee to play because getting killed is not the problem. The challenge is completing your required task on time. The screen scrolls from left to right while you fly from right to left. You control Spina’s movements with the disc in any direction you want; however, it is key that you are careful with where you go. While touching the flowers lets you collect their pollen (the flowers change colour and give you points), touching the leaves or stems deducts points from your score. You also have to be mindful of the fact that the more pollen you collect, the harder it is for Spina to keep on flying making it necessary to push the disc on an upward trend for Spina to stay in the air. In addition you cannot take all the time you want at each flower as the screen will continue scrolling and will not wait for you. In fact, if you take too long and the screen edge reaches you that game’s over. In order to successfully complete a level, you need to pass through 25 flowers and collect their pollen. If you are unsuccessful, the queen bee gives you your score and takes you away from pollen duty (i.e., the game ends!). In addition to the roses and sunflowers from which you collect pollen, there are Venus flytrap and morning glory plants to watch for. The Venus flytrap will hold you while the morning glory has pollen for you to collect. As the game progresses, the scrolling speed increases and enemies start appearing. Rain drops smack you down and spiders, flytraps, and dragonflies hold you. I found myself enjoying this game more than I expected. You are not shooting at anything but it is challenging to collect all the pollen from all the flowers given the screen is constantly scrolling. It also becomes even more challenging as you have to deal with the other bugs and the water drops. Being weighed down by the pollen doesn’t help things either! At the end of each level you are taken to the honeycomb where your score is displayed before heading into the next level. Graphics on this game are very nice with a highly detailed bee and large, colorful flowers. All the enemies are well rendered as well with sufficient detail to recognize each one. Sound is also nicely done with a very clear buzzing sound corresponding to Spina’s wings. This sounds accelerates and decelerates based on what you are doing with Spina! Nice game that should be considered for addition to any Intellivision collection.

If you have enjoyed Spina The Bee, you sure are to enjoy this “revisited” version even more. IntelligentVision has taken their original game and has made a number of enhancements to the game to make it even better and to increase the challenge. The gameplay remains the same, of course, but you now start one level higher than in the original version. If you want to start at the original level, you can hit zero on the keypad to select that level. In fact, with the new level selector you get to choose the starting level for the game while on the title screen. There’s also a pollen counter now that lets you know how much more you need to pick up to finish the level. The score screen has been modified to include a level indicator so you know how far you have gotten in the game. A new game element that has been added is the ability for Spina to eat the spider web to drop the spider to the floor. While this may slow you down briefly, it’s cool to be able to drop the spider out of the way. Overall, the game feels more polished than before which adds to the enjoyment. If you already have the original version of the game, IntelligentVision will have a way for you to update the game to this new edition. It’s well worth it and I recommend that you do it.

Who says that a game has to be complex to be enjoyed? Certainly not me! Stampede is a perfect example of a simple game that doesn’t get old and that is plenty fun to play. In Stampede you play the role of cowboy on horseback who has the mission of lassoing cows as they stampede through the playing field. These cows come in different varieties. You have yellow cows, black cows, white cows, and tan cows, each with different levels of difficulty to lasso as they have different rates of movement. Black cows generally are sitting in place and you have to watch for them because you don’t want to miss any cows from getting lassoed. Why? Miss three cows and the game’s up! You are allowed to miss a cow only when you’ve scored 1000 points and every 1000 points thereafter. To help you not miss any of the cows, the game does let you herd the cows to keep them in front of you. This is a fun strategic aspect that you need to use wisely. You also need to be careful of hitting any of the cow skulls that appear on the ground as you will trip and fall over them. Graphics are simple but effective as the cowboy is well rendered and it is easy to tell you are indeed herding cows. Sounds is limited but there is no mistaking those horse gallops as you chase after cattle. This game is for one player only but it does offer four different levels of difficulty to choose from. Believe me, it will not get boring! Another excellent game for the system and one every Intellivision owner should have.

If there was ever a game inspired by the trench of the Death Star from Star Wars it has to be Star Strike. In Star Strike you have the mission of destroying an alien space station (sound familiar?) to keep it from destroying your planet, your planet being Earth (so this isn’t in a galaxy far far away). You travel down the space station’s trench where you have to destroy enemy vessels that attack you while also targeting hot spots on the station with bombs. Hit five (yes, five; Luke had it easy with just ONE spot to hit) of these hot spots, the station explodes, and Earth is saved! Miss one of these hot spots and it shall become the planet-shattering missile that destroys Earth! Clearly, failure is not an option. You only get one combat ship to defend Earth, so it is vital that you avoid getting hit by the enemy. You also have to carefully manoeuvre your ship while in the trench as you control altitude and attitude of your ship with the disc controller. This means that it is possible to crash against the trench walls, destroying your ship, and dooming Earth. You can also control the speed at which your ship moves within the trench: warp 1 for standard speed, warp 2 for “fast” speed, and warp 3 for “super fast” speed. If you do get hit by enemy fire, your ship is not automatically destroyed; however, you do suffer damage which will have different effects on your ability to control your ship, targeting, and firing. You fire lasers at enemy ships using the top buttons on the controller and you drop bombs onto the hot spots using the bottom buttons. If you manage to hit the target with a bomb, a concussion effect (rather cool looking, I might add) let’s you know you’ve been successful. As you hit additional hot spots, the concussion effect becomes more significant until it leads to the destruction of the station after the 5th target is hit. Star Strike is a one-player game and offers six skill levels to choose from. Despite nice graphics, the game is not very good. It is nearly impossible to tell depth so hitting enemy ships is very difficult (enemy ships appear behind your ship and you can only tell whether they are ahead of behind you by a change in colour). Never mind hitting the targets. Control is stiff and dropping bombs is about as fast as a slug race. You get an auditory queue to let you know a hot spot is coming but it does little to help you hit the mark. The only thing that gives a sense of where your bomb will fall is a red dot under your ship. If you want to hit the hot spot you need to be very close to the ground so the bomb drops fast enough to hit its target. Sound is minimal, though the explosion when Earth is destroyed is pretty good.

When Arnauld Chevallier originally started working on Stonix, he intended for the title to be for the Atari ST. That game, however, was never finished so when the time came to create a Breakout-type game for the Intellivision the opportunity came for Stonix to be revived. Stonix combines elements of the traditional Breakout with elements from Arkanoid and it adds its own flavour. The goal of the game is to destroy the barriers your enemy has positioned between the two of you with your power balls and your deflector. As you hit the shield blocks, some of them will “mix” with your power ball and release different power ups for your deflector (large deflector, sticky deflectors, extra energy, multi ball, zapping deflector, etc.). You have to decide which power ups you want to catch as they come down toward your deflector. As the game progresses some of the blocks become resistant to your power ball while others become indestructible. The game also introduces flying objects that come from the two doors at the top of the screen. These objects redirect your power ball on impact and you can destroy them if they come close to your deflector. Stonix is divided into stages, each with five levels. Once you complete five levels, a bonus life is awarded and you are given a password that you may enter the next time you play. Stonix is challenging as a game but it is a very well made game for the Intellivision. There is nice music on the title and menu screens and this is where you select your game options. It is also here where you enter a password if you have one. Stonix is another must have for your Intellivision game library.

One of Intellivision’s best arcade ports is none other than BurgerTime, so it is hard to imagine that such a port could be made even better. Well, get ready because Super Chef BurgerTime (SCBT) is precisely that, an improved and enhanced version of that game. In SCBT, Peter Pepper is back trying to make burgers while he is chased by hot dogs, eggs, and pickles. This time, however, Peter has 70 levels of play to go through! Not only are there 70 stages/screens but once Peter makes it past the first stage, every stage that follows is randomly selected. Talk about a challenge! If you are able to get all 70 stages completed, then the game restarts by looping back to the first stages but at a higher level of play. Once the game ends, you’ll be greeted to a Game Over screen that tells you your level of play as well as the stage reached last. As in the original BT, Peter is equipped with pepper that he can use to stun his enemies; however on SCBT you can also freeze all the enemies in place by using the power of two peppers at once. This, clearly, must be done wisely and the player must remember that when all the enemies are frozen, they are not stunned (i.e., they are still deadly to touch). For every three burger pieces that you drop, bonus items appear in the mazes in the shape of fries, ketchup, mustard, tea, or lemonade. The game allows for one or two players to play and has four different gaming speeds to select from. This is a superb title that should not be missed!

Did you ever find yourself wanting to play your Tennis game for Intellivision but not have someone to play against? Well, you don’t want to worry about that anymore. Super Pro Tennis takes this excellent title and adds an AI (called Tennis Experimental Drone or TED) to provide you a challenger should no human be present to play with you. Don’t underestimate TED, though. He may be an AI but he can certainly play like a pro! In Super Pro Tennis you get to choose from four different levels of play:Beginner, Advanced, Pro, and Super. Each level increases the speed and agility with which TED plays but even at the easier level he is no slouch! When the game starts, you will be serving against TED. You do this by pressing one of the service keys, which moves you into position, and the using the action keys. First the action key lets you throw the ball up in the air and then they determine how hard you hit the ball (upper action keys for hard and lower for soft). Standard tennis rules apply for scoring and, once the game ends, the screen will indicate the winner. Super Pro Tennis has excellent graphics and good animation of the players. It’s also fun to see the spectators follow each service and how the ball moves from one side of the court to the next. TED has indeed been programmed to provide a good challenge and this is indeed the case. It will take some practice to win against him. Super Pro Tennis is yet another winner for the Intellivision!

On Thin Ice you play the role of Duncan, a penguin who loves to skate over thin ice to throw the other penguins into the water. Duncan does this by skating around the other penguins and drawing a square around them. When the square is completed, splash! For more skating speed, Duncan needs to grab the shrimp cocktails that are lying around the ice. Duncan does have two worries, a seal who must have been trained at a circus because it loves to grab Duncan and bounce him off its nose and a polar bear that slams Duncan off the ice cap. The seal is able to follow Duncan on the lines he makes on the ice. In order for Duncan to confuse the seal, he must swim over one of the water holes he’s already made to erase the ice lines. With the seal disoriented, it is Duncan’s chance to turn the tables on the seal by dunking it in the water. The polar bears are another story. They move about a lot and they don’t follow the lines Duncan makes on the ice. The only way to dunk them is to freeze them. The catch? You only have a limited number of freezes. If you want more, you’ll need to catch a lobster that comes around every once in a while. Once Duncan dunks all the penguins into the water, he gets a Zamboni ice resurfacer and closes all the gaps he created so a new wave of penguins can come get dunked. Thin Ice is a fun and addicting game for the Intellivision with nice graphics. Duncan is rendered in three colours while the other characters are monochromatic but recognisable. I recommend you get this original title for the system as it is well worth it.

Here is a game that not only looks fantastic but also sounds and plays incredibly well. Thunder Castle is a game that shines and shows what the Intellivision is capable of. You play the role of a knight in shining armor who must traverse the three different mazes of the Thuder Castle - forest, castle, and dungeon. In these mazes you will be challenged by dragons, sorcerers, and demons who have very little mercy on the knight. The knight must collect magical objects and slay the evil guardians in order to have the highest possible score. Keep an eye on the different objects that appear in the mazes as these may grant you bonus points as well as extra powers and bonus lives! Bats, mice, and a red skull give the knight the power to slay his enemies but only for a very short time. Thunder Castle boasts beautiful, colourful graphics and it must have some of the most beautiful (and well animated) dragons I’ve seen in a classic system. The mazes are highly detailed and the sprites are multicolored. These mazes are also not static as they continually change to add to the challenge. The music is just fantastic and really has a “medieval” style to it. The intermission screens have a very ominous music to them as well. Though the game is not easy, it is a masterpiece for the system. There’s a two-player mode so you can share the fun with a friend. This is a must-have for any Intellivision owner.

The movie Tron, released by Disney in the 80's, created a fascinating world inside computers where “programs” played games for “users” racing with motorcycles and throwing discs to “derezz” each other. This world also had large “recognisers” that functioned as ships within this remarkable world and this world was controlled by the Master Control Program (MCP). Mattel clearly saw an opportunity and decided to create games based on Tron (three different games). Tron Deadly Discs is based on the arena games where “programs” duel using their discs. As in the movie, getting hit by a disk results in de-resolution (derezz) of the character. In Tron Deadly Discs you play the role of Tron, the movie’s hero, and you must battle programs the MCP sends to attack you in the arena. To survive, you must derezz all these programs and even face a recogniser if you manage to survive all the waves of programs the MCP sends your way. Programs come in four different types: light blue warriors, purple bulldog warriors, dark blue leader warriors, and orange guard warriors. They also have different coloured discs, each with unique properties, to attack you. Tron Deadly Discs is a fun game and an original for the system. You should know that, while you can play the game using only one controller, you can choose to use both so that you control Tron’s movement with one and shooting your disc with the other. The action buttons are not used on this game, instead you shoot your disc using the numerical pad. You can also recall your disc (rather than wait for it to bounce from a wall) by pressing the same key again. Sound for the game is simple but certainly works. I really like the sound when you derezz an adversary! The only thing I was disappointed about was not hearing the Tron theme music at least at the beginning of the game (if only a few tunes). I’m guessing Mattel did not get the rights for the music.

Mattel took advantage of their license with Disney and developed three different games based on different aspects of the 1982 Tron movie. Solar Sailer is based on the scene where Tron, Flynn, and Yori ride the solar sailer to reach the Master Control Program (MCP). To enhance gameplay, Mattel chose to use their Intellivoice module to add speech from characters during gameplay. As with other Intellivoice games, speech is integral to the game. Solar Sailer is divided into two phases: Phase 1 involves traveling on the solar sailer toward the MCP while avoiding enemy attacks and Phase 2 is within the MCP where the player must break a code to win. Enemies that attack you in Phase 1 include tanks and recognizer robots. You must be careful in how you defend against them as your enemy supply is limited and getting hit by their fire only reduces your energy further. Keep changing data tracks so your energy is replenished as you try to find the sector that connects to the MCP. Once at the MCP, you must use a “Bit” to stop the transmissions from the MCP and destroy it by collecting binary code and entering the correct override code Flynn tells you to use. Solar Sailer is, without a doubt, a challenging game. Since the codes you need to use at different parts of the game are literally told to you, no Intellivoice means no playable game. Graphics are bright and colorful and the music that plays is very cool. Controls are bit complicated and the overlay is a must. Overall, though, I think this is a great game.

Ah, the tropics! Beautiful beaches, warm waters, and not too bad a place to be stuck at. Or so thought Clarence and Doris when their boat got wrecked by some rocks, getting them stuck on a remote tropical island. Unfortunately, they are not alone. Beach Bruiser decides that he likes Doris and grabs her while kicking Clarence, daring him to save Doris. Clarence must give chase while dealing with clams, ferns, snakes, boulders, coconuts, and even lava! To help Clarence, Doris drops handkerchiefs that give him temporary super strength if he is able to grab them. Can Clarence save Doris? Only you know as it is your task to guide Clarence through the island as he tries to rescue his damsel in distress. Tropical Trouble is felt, by many, to be a sequel to Beauty and the Beast because the characters in the game look very similar. It could very well be a sequel but, this time around, you are not moving up to save the damsel, you have to constantly move to the right while avoiding the different obstacles on the island. If you get stuck and the left side of the screen touches you, you are one dead Clarence. As you advance through the island, you move to different sections, each with different enemies of increasing difficulty. Despite the different scenes, the rules of the game are always the same. Beautiful graphics, good animation and sound, and several skill levels to choose from make Tropical Trouble a trouble worth playing with.