Major League Baseball

Also known as: Baseball (re-release), Big League Baseball (re-release)

Developer: APh Technical Consulting

I’m torn on Major League Baseball…on one hand, it seems more advanced than a baseball game for its time should have been. On the other hand, it’s not as easy to pick up and play as a result. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t take too long to get used to things, and the fact that the controls are a little more complicated mean that the game as a whole has a little more meat to it...but most folks won’t be picking this up for the first time and immediately understand how everything works. It’s also multi-player only, which means unless you’ve got a friend around (or want to try to use both controllers at once to play against yourself) you’re pretty much out of luck. If you do have a friend around, however, and are willing to get used to the controls, you’ve actually got a game that lives up to the title – I don’t think any other baseball game released up to that point was as authentic to the sport as Major League Baseball was.

Review added: 07/13/2019

Microsurgeon

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Imagic

I always love an odd game, and thankfully Microsurgeon is a good game, aside from being an odd one. According to the manual, in Microsurgeon, "you're part of the team of expert microsurgeons and technicians at Xenon Medical Center." It also tells you that you're attempting to save victims exposed to a "weird gas." Perhaps the developers were inspired by a trip to Taco Bell, breathing in the weird gas that appeared after eating their meals….or breathing in something else that us D.A.R.E. kids were told to avoid, if you catch my drift. But anyway, in this VERY graphically impressive game for the time, you control a little robot probe and your goal is to navigate through the body of your patient, eliminating tumors, tar deposits, gall stones, viruses, bacterial infections, and tapeworms along the way. The robot has a power supply though, so if the power is running low, you’ve got to navigate back to the eye, mouth, nose, or ear since those are the only holes that the robot can exit out of…I guess the weird gas sealed up holes further down. Also, in a neat idea, your robot moves the best when you stick with circulatory and lymphatic systems of the body…the red arteries, purple veins, and orange lymphs. Think of them like roads that allow easy navigation for the robot. You are definitely free to stray from those "roads" and go wherever you'd like, however, straying means that your movement is slowed down, and white blood cells will also then see you as an intruder and attack you. While navigating through the maze of the human body, you also want to check on the status of your patient so you know what parts of the body need immediate attention. Microsurgeon also allows a unique ability to use either one or two controllers at the same time. You can do everything with a single controller, or you can steer with one controller and shoot with the other. Likewise, that also allows a second player to jump in so you can become a surgeon team, working together to save your patients. Microsurgeon is a very, very well made game. The unique concept, beautiful graphics, and solid gameplay result in a must-play game on the Intellivision. It may be my personal favorite game on Mattel's console that I've played so far.

Review added: 04/30/2026

Mouse Trap

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Exidy

I'm going to be stubborn with my review of Intellivision's port of Mouse Trap…I simply don't like it. Compiling the average scores for the game, it looks like I'm in the minority, but I simply did not enjoy my time playing this variation of the game. My biggest complaint is the control - while it technically works, for whatever reason I struggled to get the mouse where I wanted it to go at times. I did not have these issues when playing any other version of Mouse Trap - just the Intellivision version. It didn't make the game unplayable, but I found the mouse frequently missing turns that I wanted it to make…I eventually found some better timing and had a little easier time, but I found it odd that I had to adapt like that when the other variations of the game were just pick up and play for me. I'm also not really a fan of the screen layout. They smushed the maze into the side of the screen, leaving a big chunk of the television screen unused. Granted, this makes the maze look a little more in-line with what that arcade version looked like, but other ports of the game, where they "smushed" the maze to fit the screen didn't look awful, so it seems like an odd design choice here. Anyway, despite my complaints, once you get the hang of everything, this is still the same Mouse Trap concept of travelling the maze, avoiding cats, transforming into a dog to eat the cats, and manipulating the maze to wrangle up the cats in a way that makes navigating the maze a little easier. If an Intellivision is the only option you have to play this game, it's passable. However, if you can play any other variation of Mouse Trap instead, I'd recommend all of them over this one.

Review added: 04/30/2026