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When one thinks back to game consoles from the 1980’s the chances are you’ll probably think first of the Atari 2600 (in all its wood veneered glory) or the Nintendo Entertainment System. These two machines were undoubtedly the most successful of the early and late parts of the decade respectively, but there were other consoles around too. The Mattel Intellivision had a good innings, but the games console from the early Eighties that I always wished I had owned myself was undoubtedly the ColecoVision.
You’ll be forgiven for never having heard of the ColecoVision if you’re not from the US, since whilst it was available in the UK and Europe it was a very rare beast to find in the shops, which is a real shame as the system was actually very good indeed, capable of producing arcade quality versions of some of the biggest names in videogames at the time.
I only ever managed to get to play on a ColecoVision once. I used to go to a weekly computer club and one of the other attendees had brought their one along to show off to everyone there. The machine itself wasn’t much to look at, little more than a big black rectangular box, with two wired in controllers with a funny little knobbly joystick and a keypad of 12 big square buttons. There were also a couple of buttons on the sides of the controllers too.
However who cared what the console looked like? It was the games that mattered, and the first game I saw running on it was the best version of Donkey Kong I had ever played on a home machine (until MAME came along of course). Seeing this near perfect version of one of my favourite arcade games made be instantly fall in love with the ColecoVision.
The chap who owned the ColecoVision had a couple more games for us too see, but I was already hooked after seeing Donkey Kong. The games he had were Zaxxon, a diagonally scrolling isometric 3D shoot ’em up (another near perfect arcade port) and an original title based on The Smurfs. Both had graphics and sound which knocked the spots of my Commodore Vic-20, and I came away at the end of the evening feeling very jealous.
The ColecoVision was first released in 1982, and over the next couple of years went on to sell at least 2 million units. Sadly, it never got a real chance to thrive, as in 1983 the videogame market suffered a huge decline and many companies decided to cut their losses and get out of the games business over the course of the next year or so. ColecoVision was no exception and it was phased out in the summer of 1985.
I remember acetronic too, which could be found (I think ) in radio electronics magazines for mail order, also vectrex with a built in screen
My brother and I managed to persuade our parents into allowing us to get a Colecovision, largely based on the prospect of the expansion slot allowing what appeared to be a very sleak looking home computer to be added on. Think they called it the Adam. We flogged the Atari with many games and got the folks to stump up the difference. It came with Donkey Kong included and this was indeed just like the arcade game, minus one level, the pie factory. Other games we acquired over the next year or two Zaxxon, as described above, excellent graphics. This was actually better than the C64 version that I played a couple of years down the line. Space Fury was an arcade port, very similar to Asteroids. Had a good feel to the physics. Looping was a flying game where you had to loop the loop in a small plane shooting things, not too memorable. We had a game that was like Berzerk, but on a fantasy tip, with a guy who had a bow and arrow. Can’t remember the name of it. Similar too in some ways to the Atari game Adventure. Donkey Kong Jr, was again another perfect port of the arcade game. But the real winner at the time was the Turbo driving game port which included a working steering wheel and accelerator pedal. Our pals were very jealous of this, but in fact the game, like many driving games of the time was really just about dodging other cars. Very dull, but again was just like the dull Sega arcade game. Happy days. One of my favs was the simple port of the arcade classic Carnival. Damn those ducks.. I now bemoan the amount of time my son sits on his PS3. When I think back we probably spent just as much time on the Colecovision. Only lasted a couple of years though. The computer expansion thing never saw the light of day and like everyone else at the time, we had to jump on the home computer bandwagon, our choice a Commodore 64. Happy days.
@Martin CM; FWIW, the Adam *was* released (#) in both expansion and standalone versions.
Unfortunately, it was apparently a complete disaster, plagued by production and reliability issues. Supposedly the losses made on the Adam were one of the factors contributing towards the downfall of Coleco a few years later.
(#) At least in the US; given its problems, it wouldn’t surprise me if it never actually reached sale in the UK, though I remember seeing a review in Your Computer magazine.