Sea Battle

Also known as: N/A

Developer: APh Technical Consulting

I like Sea Battle in concept…but I have one major gripe before I mention anything else about the game - it's not a single player game. Unless you've got a friend to play against, you'll be in for a pretty boring experience of floating a fleet of boats to the enemy dock without any issues. I'm complaining because Sea Battle is a fun game, but for those of us that enjoy our solitude, like myself, it requires you to stop being a hermit to play it. The NERVE of Mattel. Anyway, Sea Battle is mildly like Space Battle except you're doing all of the controlling and the combat sections are third-person shooting instead of first-person cockpit shooting. Each player starts out in an island one corner of the map. The goal is to send a naval fleet from your island and land it on your opponent's island. If your fleet gets close enough to the enemy fleet, you can enter combat. At that point, the screen zooms in and you'll take part in a 3rd-person naval battle with your ships against the enemy ships. Sailing into land masses is safe on the main screen, but if you do that during a battle, you could trash you ship…so part of the strategy is to try to corner your opponent so their options are to sit and take your fire or try to avoid and risk damaging their ship. After a battle, if you can make it back for repairs. You can only do this up to three times per battle, though, so you don't want to waste one of your repair opportunities unless you need it. You can choose between eight different ships to form your fleet, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Likewise, you have the ability to lay invisible mines down in the water, so if your opponent happens to float on by without doing a sweep for mines, they may be in for a surprise. Overall, Sea Battle can be good fun if you've got a friend that wants a more strategic take on the player vs. player battle style of gameplay that most home consoles had a few games of at the time.

Review added: 11/25/2025

Shark! Shark!

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Mattel

Shark! Shark! is a title that makes this sound more like you're a human swimming around in the ocean and trying to avoid sharks as you swim your way back to shore. But instead, in this game, you control a little fish and your goal is to eat smaller fish so that you can get bigger and score more points…all while avoiding the big ol' shark that appears on screen. I don't imagine that the fish you're controlling is yelling, "Shark! Shark!" like a panicked swimmer would be in the scenario I mentioned earlier…but the title works well enough, I suppose. Anyway, there's a big positive and a big negative to Shark! Shark!, in my opinion. I'll start with the positive. It is genuinely fun to swim around and watch your fish get bigger with each meal. In these early stages, most fish are deadly, not just the shark. Anything bigger than you can and will eat you. So, if can lead to moments where you're chasing down a meal, when suddenly a larger fish swoops in and takes your prey, then decides that you're going to be its next victim, forcing you to change course and try your best to avoid their jaws. Sometimes you can even lure some of these bigger fish into the path of the shark so give them a taste of their own medicine…well, I suppose the shark would be the one getting the taste. The big negative in this game, however, is that you're limited to how big your fish can get. In my mind, I was thinking of Katamari Damacy, where I can just keep eating everything and becoming this giant, whale of a fish before "winning" that round and starting the next round to rinse and repeat. That's not the case here - your goal is to simply survive and making your fish as large a possible simply helps improve your chances of survival. Jellyfish that appear cannot be eaten and they will always kill you. Sharks can be defeated, but it requires trickery by nibbling at their tail…but if their jaws make contact with you, you're dead, regardless of the size of your fish. Crabs and lobsters are also deadly creatures that can kill even your largest fish by jumping up and trying to snip them with their claws, but they're vulnerable when they float back down to the sea floor, so that's when you can fight back. Not being able to simply eat these other sea creatures adds another layer of depth to the game, which helps prevent it from getting stale too quickly. Overall, Shark! Shark! Is a deceptively deep game that will likely keep you playing far longer than you anticipated

Review added: 04/28/2026

Snafu

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Mattel

At first glance, Snafu just looks like the typical snake games that you could have found in the 1970s, like Dominos in arcades or Surround on the Atari 2600. While Snafu does offer the gameplay found in those games - the "snake" of each player growing larger and larger until one player or the other crashes and/or runs out of space to move. Snafu, however, also brings more gameplay options to the table. For example, rather than simply having a large, open area, Snafu introduces obstacles in the play area that must be avoided. There are also game modes called "bite" games, where the goal isn't to make your opponent crash, but instead for you to maneuver your way around to the back of your opponent's snake, with the goal of biting their tail. It's a neat variation of the snake game in its own right and is a welcome addition to the package. Snafu is a solid game, and one of the better entries in the "snake" genre of games to have ever come out, in my opinion. If you want a nice, simplistic game to kill a few minutes with a friend or family member, then Snafu is a pretty solid choice.

Review added: 05/30/2026

Space Armada

Also known as: N/A

Developer: APh Technical Consulting

Space Armada was Mattel's attempt at having Space Invaders on the Intellivision. The gameplay is nearly identical to Space Invaders, with the only exception (that I saw) being that ever a while, you've got invisible enemies shooting at you. If you compare this to the Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders instead of the arcade version, then Space Armada can't even point to that as something that makes Space Armada different, since the Atari version of Space Invaders also had that as an option….along with many, many more options. And it came out a year earlier. Honestly, the only thing that Space Armada has going for it are the large, bright, colorful enemies that you fire away at. Otherwise, Space Armada is simply a Space Invaders clone, released three years after the arcade game took arcades by storm, and one year after the Atari 2600 version brought the game home with a slew of new gameplay options. If you own an Atari 2600, it's pretty pointless to get Space Armada unless you're trying to complete a set of Intellivision games. If the Intellivision is all you have, however, and you absolutely must have a Space Invaders-inspired game, then Space Armada is passable for what it is.

Review added: 06/02/2026

Space Battle

Also known as: N/A

Developer: APh Technical Consulting

Part of me expected Space Battle to be another variation of the "Space War" formula of having two players battle against each other. To my surprise, while Space Battle can be a two player game, it seems to be designed more towards a single player experience. And not only that, this is absolutely nothing like Space War. Basically, Space Battle is a strange hybrid of mild strategy and first-person cockpit shooter. You start the game by sending your squadrons out to meet the incoming enemy fleets. Once a ship is in range of the enemy, you can switch over to the cockpit and start shooting away at them. These scenes can be good fun, and the alien ships look pretty nice as they fly by…and even nicer when they explode from a well-timed shot. Each of your three squadrons have three ships. That basically is the equivalent of three lives. Each time you get hit by enemy fire, a ship goes down. Get hit three times and your squadron is wiped out. If you choose not to enter the shooting parts and stick purely with strategy, you can try to do that. It does look like it MAY be possible to still win that way, as I watched enemy ships drop in number, however, it also seems like the computer takes way too slow to eliminate the enemy, so by the time they take care of one, the other ships may already be at your base….so you're better off just blowing stuff up on your own, eh? Unlike other games of the time, Space Battle actually does have an end. If you can wipe out all five alien squadrons, you'll be returned to the original radar screen and you'll be awarded with the sound of a victory horn and the words "ALL CLEAR" appear at the bottom of the screen. After that, you'll need to hit the reset button to start again. All in all, Space Battle is a neat little game for its time. The combination of very mild strategy and first-person shooting helps it stand out from other games of the time. If that combination sounds interesting to you, then I recommend checking Space Battle out.

Review added: 11/25/2025

Space Hawk

Also known as: N/A

Developer: APh Technical Consulting

At first glance, Space Hawk just appears to be Mattel's attempt at Asteroids…but instead of piloting a ship and blasting asteroids out of the way, in Space Hawk, you're piloting a lone "hunter," who is not in a space ship, as he attempts to track down his target - the white space hawk. Since you're in space, propelled by a rocket-powered backpack, the physics are similar to what you'd find in Asteroids when piloting the ship in that game - once you let off the gas, you're going to keep floating for a while. However, unlike in Asteroids, where you can mostly just shoot away in a single position and only move slightly when needed, in Space Hawk, you'll need to maneuver around the screen a little more if you want to survive. Also, instead of just a single type of target to shoot at, Space Hawk gives you several. You'll see bubbles on screen, amoebas, comets, and, of course, the space hawk. Each enemy type reacts differently, too. Bubbles can come in various forms, single bubbles, double bubbles that split into two when shot, and rainbow bubbles, which constantly change colors and can only be destroyed when they're green - if your ammo hits it when it is any other color, your shot will ricochet back in a random direction. Amoebas are immune to your shots and will give chase to you, preventing you from staying stationary for too long. And, of course, the star hawks come in both large and small forms. Both types take three shots to take down, though the smaller hawk nets you more points. A "hyperspace" button was also included, so when it looks like you're about to be toast, you can press that button and it will instantly warp you to another location, away from any danger. The downside to using hyperspace, though, is that it will cost you points each time that you use it. There are also black holes that sometimes appear in the game. If you get too close to one, it will be the same as hitting the hyperspace button, including the point penalty. The end result of all of that is a game that looks and feels like Asteroids, but plays like something new, fresh, and faster-paced. The only real downside, that I could see, is that unlike the slower pace of Asteroids, where you could often spare a second or two to aim properly, in Space Hawk, taking time to aim can often result in death, which can make you feel like you're spending more time blindly shooting while escaping danger than using skill to survive. Still, Space Hawk is a solid game for Intellivision owners. It's not Asteroids, but it's a nice consolation prize for folks that favor Mattel's console.

Review added: 04/29/2026

Stampede

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Activision

Stampede is a solid game from Activision where the concept is to wrangle as many dogies as possible before you leave too many behind…basically, leaving one behind results in you losing a life. Now, you may be wondering to yourself, "Wait…A game called Stampede is about wrangling dogs?" No, dogies is a term for orphaned calves from a range herd of cattle. So if you've ever heard the ol' song "Git Along Little Doggies," that's what the fella is singing about. In Stampede, you've got three types of dogies, or cattle, to wrangle up. You've got the Hereford cattle which appear on the screen in brown, the Jersey cattle which appear in tan, and the Black Angus cattle that appear in…well, black. Each one of these dogies moves at different speeds and is worth different points. That's where the challenge, and fun, of Stampede comes in. You can't simply lasso everything as it appears on the screen - there will eventually be too many at once, and with them all moving at different speeds, you need to pick your movements carefully. Thankfully, you don't necessarily have to lasso every dogie as it gets near you. By blocking it from falling behind you on the left side of the screen, you're basically "herding" it back into the group on the right side of the screen. As long as you can continue to block cattle from exiting, you can continue to herd them forward to make it a little easier to wrangle them up. The game modes also spread out the difficulty nicely, too. Playing game one helps you learn the ropes, pun intended, and eases you into playing by starting the game slowly and gradually picking up the pace, with cattle only falling back towards you in a straight line. Playing game five, however, starts the game at full speed and the dogies try to avoid your lasso by moving up and down the screen. Stampede is a pretty fun game that'll likely hook you longer than you'd expect, wanting to play just one more game to see if you can get a better score….even though the first time you said, "One more game," was ten games ago.

Review added: 04/28/2026

Star Strike

Also known as: N/A

Developer: APh Technical Consulting

I have mixed feelings on Star Strike. On one hand, while it lasts, it is a pretty fun game….on the other hand, it doesn't last very long. The goal here is destroy the alien station within the time limit. You've got five "hot targets" that you need to bomb, while also trying to shoot down (and avoid fire from) UFOs and space ships. Battling the spacecraft can be fun, but they're mostly there to serve as a distraction and add some difficulty to the game, I feel. Since this game tries to simulate 3D, bombing those targets isn't as simple as simply timing your shot. Since you're also moving around to avoid enemy fire, when the target appears for you to bomb, you may be higher up on the screen or lower down. Dropping a bomb from different heights results in the bomb hitting the surface in different times, with it landing faster when you're lower and taking longer to drop when you're higher up. It didn't take me long to use the stars in the background as my point of reference so that I could successfully time my bomb drops and consistently get myself in the right place, and at the right height, to always hit my target. While it felt nice to come up with a winning strategy like that, it also ruined any chances of me playing this game much more after that. It takes less than five minutes to beat this game when you've got the hang of everything…and you get a nice little ending as a reward…but there isn't a whole lot else here, unfortunately. Star Strike is an impressive-looking game, and fun while it lasts…unfortunately, for most folks, that fun won't likely last long.

Review added: 05/28/2026