Copyright 1983 The New York Times Company 
The New York Times


February 13, 1983, Sunday, Late City Final Edition


SECTION: Section 3; Page 27, Column 4; Financial Desk

LENGTH: 284 words

HEADLINE: WHAT'S NEW IN THE TOY INDUSTRY:
BASHING KILLER RATS

BYLINE: By Phillip Shenon

BODY:
The Milton Bradley Company has come up with a set of video game cartridges that do 
more than flash pretty pictures and make sounds. They listen, too. Voice Command 
cartridges, which will go on sale later this summer, let a player direct the action 
with spoken directions. Milton Bradley declined to say how many of the cartridges 
it expects to sell in 1983.

In a baseball game demonstrated to wide-eyed toy buyers last week, the player 
controls the movement of the ball on the screen by a series of statements made into 
a special microphone. Example: When the words ''first baseman, shortstop, pitcher'' 
are said, the ball is thrown from the first baseman to the shortstop to the 
pitcher, who then pitches.  With another set of vocal commands, the ballplayers can 
be renamed. The right fielder, for instance, might become ''Reggie.'' So if the 
statement ''Reggie, first base'' were made, the right fielder would lob the ball to 
the first baseman's glove.

In another Milton Bradley game, Sewermania, a character must defuse a time bomb in 
a maze-like sewer filled with ''killer'' rats and alligators. With one voice 
command (''pick up''), he grabs a shovel. Another order (''kill'') prods the 
shovel-armed man to bash the rats.

Despite the technological advances represented by the Voice Command cartridges - 
the voice recognition feature is controlled by a single integrated-circuit chip - 
playing the new games is going to be expensive.  The cartridges must be plugged into 
a special $100 microcomputer device made by Milton Bradley. The Expander, as it is
called, can be used only if it is attached to a Texas Instruments 99/4A Home
Computer ($147). The cartridges will run about $30 each.