Outatime

Gee, thanks, Wil. His latest post over at WWdN:IX just had to be about retro gaming, didn't it. Back when I was a kid, I was addicted to video games. They were new, they were super cool (you could play a game... On your TV!), and after the 1983 crash, they were dirt cheap. The system in question here is the Intellivision (Intelligent Television, the second generation of which is shown at right), and yes: I indeed had one of these bad boys. In fact, I had all three versions at one point. Come to think of it, I think my original Intellivision I is still downstairs somewhere...

JC and I were hooked on these consoles. In the pre-NES days, they were the king shit console of consoles. They made Atari's consoles look like they were trapped in the PONG era. Though it's not widely known, the INTVs were, in fact, true 16 Bit systems. At its peak, the INTV family had over 100 games available for it, and consoles of one style or another were produced up until the end of the 80's, well into the NES era.

After the industry crash of 1983, Intellivision alone survived. Other companies had given up on the home console market after a flood of systems and shoddy games polluted the genre, but INTV managed to stick it out. At the time, one of the local pharmacies (and only store within 30 miles to carry games) had begun selling off carts for $2 and $3 apiece, leaving JC and I to up our libraries considerably. One such trip, I remember, brought about the addition of the uber-classic Triple Action to my collection.

Night Stalker. SNAFU. AD&D. Space Hawk. Star Strike. Donkey Kong. Mouse Trap. Utopia. Lock-N-Chase. Burger Time. Quite a few different TRON titles. Ka-BOOM!

Seriously. I just spent the last hour at the official Blue Sky Rangers website. Awesome. Just... Wow. If you're in your mid-20's or older and want to take a great walk through the past, or if you're some punk kid spoiled by your PlayStation 2's and your XBox 360s and needs a lesson on why you have those consoles at all, pay it a visit.