Living: Alien Creatures in the Home

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Atari's hand controls, too, are poor for a console that costs $150. Cartridges are $18 to $38. But they raise blisters on both adults and teenagers, and that does not happen unless a game is fascinating. Atari has good simplifications of Space Invaders and Asteroids, and a good Missile Command.

A firm called Acti-Vision makes $23 cartridges that fit Atari's console, and will soon make them for Intellivision. Acti-Vision's Laser Blast is a good fast-reflex game in which the player himself is the space invader. Its Tennis has a couple of good illusions—the ball bounces realistically on the court—but no effective simulation of hitting the ball, and no distinction between serves and ground strokes. Like too many cartridges for all three systems, Tennis is likely to be played twice and forgotten.