Intellivision

"Intelligent television."

Ahhh, the Intellivision. It may have been made simply to compete with the growing interest in the Atari 2600, but the Intellivision has a charm all its own. There were tons of good games for the Intellivision, and while the infamous 'phone like' control pad may put off a lot of retro gamers, it's still a good system, with some great games, and a few interesting facts. For one, it's technically the first 16-bit system... as the registers in the microprocessor are 16 bits wide. But more interestingly, it was the first system with downloadable games, with the PlayCable service. The games disappeared when you turned the system off, but hey, it's still pretty neat. And let's not forget the IntelliVoice module, so now robotic voices can haunt your dreams from when you were playing your INTV. But seriously, the system gets a lot of undeserved flak, so enjoy what it is and was.

Note: A LOT of good Intellivision games are available on the Intellivision Lives! collections, which are available for PC, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, and Nintendo DS. Also, if you're going to get an actual Intellivision, I would try to get the second model, with detachable controllers and the option of an Atari converter but beware that the AC adapter is very hard to find.