Game of the Week: Lock 'N' Chase for Intellivision

Lock 'N' Chase was originally an arcade game released in 1981 by Taito in the U.S. and Data East in Japan. It must have been a popular enough arcade game because there were several ports of it made to home video game systems, including the Atari 2600, the Apple II and eventually even the Nintendo Game Boy.

But after nearly 30 years, I've yet to run across a Lock 'N' Chase arcade game. I've never seen one. And back in the golden days of video games of the early 1980s, I spent tons and tons of time in arcades because my step-dad worked in an arcade and I got to play thousands upon thousands of games for free.

Odd.

Still, I did have Lock 'N' Chase at home for my Intellivision home video game system, and it was a blast to play.

It was basically another maze game, thanks to the popularity of Pac-Man, but in this one you played a robber on the run from the police. The object is to collect all the coins (dots) on the screen before the police can catch up to you. To help the robber, he can close doors between himself and the police, and with a bit of luck can trap police between two doors. Also, special items appear in the center of the screen from time to time for bonus points.

This is perhaps my all-time favorite home maze game, specifically the Intellivision version. It had quality sounds which were fun, solid gameplay, and great, brightly-colored graphics, at least for the time period.

Sometimes it was a bit difficult to move the robber character exactly where you wanted him, but that was mainly due to the disc-like controls of the Intellivision. Still, once you became familiar with the Intellivision controls and its quirks, you were good to go.

Lock 'N' Chase was so much fun on the Intellivision, I have to rank it as one of my favorite games on the system, easily in the top five.