Beauty & the Beast!
As most avid collectors know, the term “factory sealed” has an exalted level of significance, especially in terms of older items. The other day I was at The Movie Trading Company, browsing the vintage video game section (imagine that) and ran across a factory sealed Beauty & the Beast, one of my favorite Intellivision games and one of my favorite climbing games in general. I already own the game, of course, but I couldn’t resist buying a “new” copy (yes, there’s a seam running on back of the seal, meaning it is factory sealed and not simply re-shrink wrapped). The Intellivision take on the Beauty & the Beast theme has nothing to do with the movie, fairy tale, or TV show of the same name. Rather, it’s a Donkey Kong-inspired climbing game that is loads of fun.
Here’s my official review of the game:
Beauty & the Beast
Publisher: Imagic. Developer: Imagic.
Climbing, 1 player. 1982.
A fantastic alternative to the dreary Intellivision rendition of Donkey Kong, Beauty & Beast is one of the two or three slickest, most arcade-like games in the system’s entire library. Players guide a quickly moving character up the side of a multi-tiered skyscraper, walking across ledges and climbing up windows that open and close randomly. The goal is to reach the top, where a large, ape-like bully holds Mabel. Birds, rats, and boulders make things difficult, but they can be jumped over (in the case of the boulders and rats) or otherwise avoided. Mabel releases hearts, which can briefly make our hero invincible, making for a key strategy, especially in later levels. Reaching the top rewards players with a King Kong-like ending: the bully falling to his “death.” Other than Mabel, who is blocky and blue, the game looks great and has fantastic production values.
(Excerpted from Classic Home Video Games, 1972-1984: A Complete Reference Guide).
1 comment:
For some reason, the Movie Trading Company (at least the Grand Prairie location off of I-20) had several shrinkwrapped copies of Beauty and the Beast. I've always wondered why they'd get so many. They also had several copies of Asteroids, last time I looked.
Movie Trading Company is now owned by Vintage Stock, which is why they're bothering with classic games. The one in Hurst has a nice little bin of loose Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, and Odyssey2 carts for around a buck or two. Pretty nice. I've been to a lot of their locations looking for old games, that one's got the most it seems. Although the one by The Parks mall in Arlington has an Atari 400! No games for it, though. I keep getting the urge to trade in a few duplicates to them, just so they'd have something to sell along with the machine.
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