Intellivision: Intelligent Television - Part 2

As promised, here are my top three Intellivision games:

3. Beauty and the Beast

In this original Intellivision game from Imagic, you must climb a building in order to rescue a girl from a suspiciously ape-ish looking 'bully'. This game is obviously a take-off on Donkey Kong. However, instead of being just a knock-off clone, it has important gameplay differences that make it unique and original.

As you climb each level of the building, the ledges that you run and jump along get narrower and narrower, until you finally reach the top of the building. But, watch out at the edges, because if you fall off the ledge you will not only lose a life, you will plummet to the bottom of the building and be forced to start scaling it from the bottom again.

Also, you don't climb up ladders as in Donkey Kong. In Beauty and the Beast you climb up windows. But, be careful because you can only climb up windows that are open. Watch out, if you are scaling a window as it shuts, you will lose a life.

This game is super-fast. Windows open and close, the bully tosses boulders in your direction, the damsel in distress occasionally tosses a heart your way (which will make you temporarily immune to rocks and other critters). If you guage things right, you can zip up three or four ledges with one well timed movement on your controller. Or, just as quickly you can lose three or four lives in a row to closing windows, birds, mice, and rocks.

Beauty and the Beast is also irreverant fun. When you complete each level a plane flys across the screen trailing various signs like 'Lucky' or 'Good Job'. Then, when you reach the top of the building and reach the bully, you promptly kick him right over the edge and you and your girl are picked up by said plane and flown away, only to begin the next building and do things all over again.

2. Lock N' Chase

Lock N' Chase is another game with classic roots. At first glance, it would seem to be a Pac-Man clone, but Lock N' Chase has key differences. In this game, you are a bank robber racing around a bank, eluding the ghosts... err, cops, snatching gold bars. Only there are no power pellets in this game. Instead, the player's edge is that you can lock doors behind you. By pressing the side button on the controller you lock the last door that you've gone through (this is an important point by the way). You can lock two doors at a time. So, you lock doors in order to prevent the cops from catching you. You can also really delay the cops (and get a nice score bonus) by locking them in between two doors (that's where it's important that you can lock doors you've just passed through).

The other big component of Lock N' Chase is the 'vault' in the center of the maze. At four points within each maze, a dollar sign will begin flashing in the vault. Grab this for increasing numbers of points, al-la gobbling consecutive ghosts in Pac-Man. Also, grabbing the dollar sign in the middle temporarily freezes all the cops, allowing you a bit of time to escape some sticky situations.

This game is fast (really really fast in the higher levels), and a lot of fun. If you can work out good 'patterns', you can rack up points. Just don't let the greed factor of the dollar sign in the middle lead you into the arms of the cops.
And, my absolute favorite....

1. Night Stalker

This is an original classic that I've never seen equalled. The gameplay is deceptively simple, yet full of strategy and 'edge of your seat' action. In this game you are trapped in a maze full of deadly robots. Your only weapons are your wits and a six-shot pistol. After six shots you must reload by grabbing a pistol which appears in one of five spots in the maze. Some of these reload points are easier than others, which makes for a moment of suspense when you run out of ammo. Will the next pistol appear nearby, or will it be way on the other size of the maze where robots are already milling around?

At the beginning of the game there is only one enemy robot, along with two bats and a spider. After 5000 points, when you kill a bat it is replaced by a robot, so you end up with three robots coming after you (the spider is never replaced by anything else, and is usually just a minor annoyance). The main robot gets progressively tougher as the game goes on. After the first model, there is one that is more intelligent. This is eventually replaced by a robot that you have to shoot three times to destroy. Then there is a robot whose bullets absorb yours (forcing you to shoot and then move before the robot shoots back at you). Then there is a robot whose bullets destroy your 'bunker' in the middle of the screen (which is where you appear after losing a life). Finally, at 80,000 points, the invisible robot appears. This enemy can only be seen when he shoots at you or when he passes by another enemy.

An absolutely critical part of the gameplay of Night Stalker is the fact that the enemy robots (and the player for that matter) can only have one bullet 'in flight' at a time. You can really use this fact to your advantage. One strategy is to entice a robot clear on the other side of the maze to shoot at you. Then you know you have a second or two where the robots right next to you won't be able to shoot. Be careful though, since this works both ways. If you shoot across the screen, you'll be powerless to attack until that bullet completes its journey.

Night Stalker is filled with action, with bullets flying left and right. But it also has strategy, especially when the invisible robot appears. There are certain spots in the maze that are relatively safe because the robots will fire at you before they get close enough to kill you. So, you can use these spots to make sure that you know where the invisible robot is, and can shoot him before he shoots you.

I've played a LOT of Night Stalker. It just doesn't get old. I guess that's why I have the world record score. This game is definitely worth your time.

So, definitely try these classic games out. Blue Sky Rangers has various products for you to play them on your PC. They are tons of fun, and a slice of gaming history.

- Ed Williams