Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

1 minute ago, gogamego said:

Sports? During the 16-bit era I played a ton of sports games. Madden, NHL, Tennis...even some basketball and soccer.

But, I stopped playing them around the PS2 era. I'm not sure if it became too complicated or what. I just stopped having fun with them. So, I am really looking forward to getting back into some sports games. Can't wait to hear what the news is.

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk
 

Probably MLB ! 😃

3 hours ago, LordRayken said:

okay so i see we're pussyfooting around the reality. i dont have any problems dropping it. i do a lot of in depth analysis of these people and their consoles.

hardcore gamers are some of the dumbest fucking people on the planet. they have lived their whole lives playing only xbox and playstation at this point and probably dont even know what sega is. we are talking people who have played games for about 20 years and are in their early 30s. they probably have no education and have never done anything outside of play games. they dont have any other interests. they dont have lives outside of it. they have no life experiences either. they dont travel. they dont eat out at nice places. they dont go anywhere. they go to the game store and go home. many live with their parents. we are seeing the way they are in these interviews and in these comments.

 

lets just be real. they are cynical introverted assholes who repeat the same shit over and over. they all said switch would flop. all they care about is a traditional controller and a 2 hour long movie game like doom eternal and last of us. those arent bad games but obviously if thats all they look forward to they arent looking at amico. so there isnt a point to do these interviews. its not fun seeing tommy look sad or get depressed because these people are taking out their unhappiness on him. its not worth it. 

When I hear people talk about "retro" and they're referring to the PS2, I just start shaking my head.  Then when they say they grew up playing PS1 or the N64, it just slaps me in the face at how long I've been playing video games.

It's hard listen to people talk about old games and they have no perspective from the time.  People like to crap on Altered Beast and say it's junk, but when that game came out it was like a revelation. I remember playing it at friend's house and just being floored with how good it looked. It was the arcade game, but we could play it at home. 

And you're being generous is saying they want 2 hour long movies.  Everything has to be a minimum of 30 hours. And have amazing graphics. And a great story. And a multiplayer component. And have an upgrade system that is complicated as f***!  

Just now, vongruetz said:

And you're being generous is saying they want 2 hour long movies.  Everything has to be a minimum of 30 hours. And have amazing graphics. And a great story. And a multiplayer component. And have an upgrade system that is complicated as f***!  

You forgot the massive empty world!

 
I mostly do them cause folks ask and I want to be nice to them (no matter how big or small their channel is).  But yeah... it looks some folks will now take something I say and use it out of context.
 
It's fine.  Time to move on.  I'm sure I'll do others along the way... but won't be my focus.

Doing one with Vera Dark tonight at 5pm (live) and she doesn't want it to be an interview at all... she wants to just have a conversation... so that should be nice.
 
Always a joy to see folks from here in the chat.  Very cool.

Here's the link.
 
 
 
One of our big partner press releases are coming out next week and lets just say I think I may be doing some "sports" related interviews soon.
 

 

10 minutes ago, LePionnier said:

Probably MLB ! 😃

6 minutes ago, gogamego said:

Whoops, just noticed the baseball icon in your post. Yes, please! I need a good baseball game. Go Cardinals!

Lol ! Didn't notice it ! 😆  So yes, it will be Major League Baseball with all their contact list !

Tommy is working so hard behind the scene ! We have the perfect passionate gentleman for Intellivision Entertainment and Amico !

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

You picked up on that eh?  Was trying my best. 

 

Yeah... I think I really need to start moving on from these types of interviews.  Going to start focusing on the non-gamer stuff moving forward.  Still have a bunch of gamer ones in the hopper (almost 2 a day for the rest of the week), but I believe it's time to move on for now.

 

 

Ok I totally get that, let me know when you want to come back on with me to do more casual family stuff as I got tons more questions in that realm.  To be honest I am hardcored gamed out, plus as I know you will all knock those games out of the stratosphere so zero concerns from me on that level.  Thanks for doing what you do Tommy, it is appreciated and respected by 99.99% of the people who follow Amico

5 minutes ago, gogamego said:

Sports? During the 16-bit era I played a ton of sports games. Madden, NHL, Tennis...even some basketball and soccer.

But, I stopped playing them around the PS2 era. I'm not sure if it became too complicated or what. I just stopped having fun with them. So, I am really looking forward to getting back into some sports games. Can't wait to hear what the news is.

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk
 

Gotta love 16-bit sports gaming.  I still play NHLPA '93, Bill Walsh's College Football, and especially Mutant League Football for the Genesis periodically.  Great stuff and perhaps the Amico can bring some simple, easy to play hard to master games sports games into its fold.

22 minutes ago, gogamego said:

Sports? During the 16-bit era I played a ton of sports games. Madden, NHL, Tennis...even some basketball and soccer.

But, I stopped playing them around the PS2 era. I'm not sure if it became too complicated or what. I just stopped having fun with them. So, I am really looking forward to getting back into some sports games. Can't wait to hear what the news is.

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk
 

I find it funny how the sports games I played would change through the gaming generations. With Intellivision and into the NES, I really only played baseball. The 16 bit era was all hockey/basketball. After that, I was pretty much only FIFA, but even that has faded a lot this generation. When sports games became so overly focused on making them hyper-realistic, I started to lose interest. They started becoming way too complicated to play. 

4 minutes ago, vongruetz said:

I find it funny how the sports games I played would change through the gaming generations. With Intellivision and into the NES, I really only played baseball. The 16 bit era was all hockey/basketball. After that, I was pretty much only FIFA, but even that has faded a lot this generation. When sports games became so overly focused on making them hyper-realistic, I started to lose interest. They started becoming way too complicated to play. 

Agree.  The 16-bit era was the best for sports gaming imo.  However, there are some fun sports games that have come out since such as NFL Blitz for the PS1 and NFL Street 2 for the PSP.

24 minutes ago, OEB_Pete said:

Ok I totally get that, let me know when you want to come back on with me to do more casual family stuff as I got tons more questions in that realm.  To be honest I am hardcored gamed out, plus as I know you will all knock those games out of the stratosphere so zero concerns form me on that level.  Thanks for doing what you do Tommy, it is appreciated and respected by 99.99% of the people who follow Amico

ANYTIME you want to do an interview I'm totally up for it!!!

Just let me know and I'll be there!

Happy to ALWAYS support your channel Pete.

23 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

Gotta love 16-bit sports gaming.  I still play NHLPA '93, Bill Walsh's College Football, and especially Mutant League Football for the Genesis periodically.  Great stuff and perhaps the Amico can bring some simple, easy to play hard to master games sports games into its fold.

And kinda cool that we have 6 super experienced people on our staff (including me) that helped to make and produce those types of games back in the day.  We know what made them great and why (simplicity, controls and playability and challenge!)

But nah... that doesn't matter.  We're just a bunch of "Boomers" who don't comprehend what fun is anymore.  I mean hell... the new Earthworm Jim is going to be an absolute disaster because the entire team of experienced award winning professionals don't know what we're doing anymore.

Crap... I better call Miyamoto and tell him his days are numbered.

I would second the earlier comment about doing interviews with people who get 1,000+ views. Have you reached out to John Hancock, Tommy?

I saw the Ben Heck and Adam Koralik stuff. But maybe it's time to reach out again to Metaljesus, John Riggs, Kelsey Lewin and others who are less cynical and less negative or incapable of having regular social interaction. (that's my nice way of putting it). They may be good channels to show off the attachable buttons and some more gameplay, while also getting some of their input. These are gamers that aren't horrible people and that's probably why a lot more people watch them.

Maybe try some geekier channels like "Nintendrew" and "My Life in Gaming" You could probably tweet Nintendrew and he would do a short video that's all positive because he's usually pretty positive. 

18 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

Agree.  The 16-bit era was the best for sports gaming imo.  However, there are some fun sports games that have come out since such as NFL Blitz for the PS1 and NFL Street 2 for the PSP.

I worked on Blitz!  That was a fun one.  Also did the NHL games during that period.  I loved working on the early Madden Football games also.  Got to spend an entire day with John Madden and Pat Summerall! 

2 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

I would second the earlier comment about doing interviews with people who get 1,000+ views. Have you reached out to John Hancock, Tommy?

 

I saw the Ben Heck and Adam Koralik stuff. But maybe it's time to reach out again to Metaljesus, John Riggs, Kelsey Lewin and others who are less cynical and less negative or incapable of having regular social interaction. (that's my nice way of putting it). They may be good channels to show off the attachable buttons and some more gameplay, while also getting some of their input. These are gamers that aren't horrible people and that's probably why a lot more people watch them.

 

Maybe try some geekier channels like "Nintendrew" and "My Life in Gaming" You could probably tweet Nintendrew and he would do a short video that's all positive because he's usually pretty positive. 

All great ideas. 

If anyone here wants to reach out and message/tweet any of these folks... please feel free to do so.  You can tell them to just PM on Twitter (as I believe most of them have Twitter accounts).

36 minutes ago, vongruetz said:

I find it funny how the sports games I played would change through the gaming generations. With Intellivision and into the NES, I really only played baseball. The 16 bit era was all hockey/basketball. After that, I was pretty much only FIFA, but even that has faded a lot this generation. When sports games became so overly focused on making them hyper-realistic, I started to lose interest. They started becoming way too complicated to play.

Try this. You won't regret it.

Notice the bar that gets bigger and smaller: it's the power meter. It's a clever way to implement shots of 4 different strengths with only one button. You can do 8 types of shots with only one button, combining the:

- 3 positions of the power meter and a "negative" power shot, with the negative one being a heel kick.

- 2 diferent kinds of shots and 1 special shot: Standing still, the players make a very low/flat shot; in movement they make a lob shot and leaving the fire button pressed before receiving the ball makes a very powerful special shot.

You can even choose 6 tactics, manual or automatic control of the keeper and play versus or co-op.

It looks terrible, but it's a winner. Play the ZX Spectrum one or use a C64/Amstrad emulator able to increase the speed, though. The Spectrum one is the original and the versions are slow as a snail.

1 minute ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

All great ideas. 

 

If anyone here wants to reach out and message/tweet any of these folks... please feel free to do so.  You can tell them to just PM on Twitter (as I believe most of them have Twitter accounts).

I know John Hancock has already said positive things about the Amico and considers it a major release this year. His video got 35,000 views. Maybe try commenting here?

10 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

I worked on Blitz!  That was a fun one.  Also did the NHL games during that period.  I loved working on the early Madden Football games also.  Got to spend an entire day with John Madden and Pat Summerall! 

John Madden and Pat Summerall were the best!  Where is that duo when we need them?!?  Also, Blitz is a fun one.  Also, Blitz 2000 on the Dreamcast was a good version, but not as good as the original on the PS1 imo.

Tommy,

Is there any update on Snafu (Snafoo) for Amico?  Will there be a trailer for it and will it be a launch title?

I’m happy to read that Tommy will be moving on from these types of interviews. I usually watch them all either live or the next day, but last night was... interesting. I kind of figured Tommy would eventually make that move when things picked up post-E3 (had it happened), but, yeah, might be time to accelerate that schedule. Obviously, not all interviews have been bad, but perhaps they’ve served their purpose.

Years ago, I worked in radio and spent many years in a radio station newsroom where I interviewed people every day. At first, I was terrible, but repetition and experience led to doing things much better. During that time, when Larry King was king of CNN, I read some of his books. He talked about his interview techniques which was obviously of interest to me. 

King might have a card or sheet that reminded him what to plug (if it was a celebrity), but his true skill was listening. To him, it was pointless to have a bunch of prepared questions because the answer to his first question might take the interview in a totally different direction. If he was too focused on prepared questions, he might miss something that would make for an amazing interview. He wanted it to flow like a conversation where both people were actually listening to each other.

For many of Tommy’s interviews, there are a list of questions and he’s soliciting questions from the chat room. Nothing wrong with that in this case. But the other key ingredient that King had was a wide set of references. OK, he seemed ancient even back then and had seen a lot of life, but it did mean he could put things into a wider context whether it was world events or just the movie industry.

And that’s what is lacking (for me, at least) in a lot of these interviews... context of a wider world. Which is kind of odd when you think about it. Before the internet, in order to have context of the bigger world, you needed to be well-read, converse with people with a different worldview, or pay attention each night to the news.

Now we have just about every bit of information on any topic at our fingertips, and all that has seemed to do is help us become ultra-narrow in focusing on our passions and interests to the exclusion of what others might think as being correct or a valid preference. (playing solo vs. couch co-op, ultra-realistic graphics vs. simple graphics, violent games vs. family games, online vs. offline, hardcore gaming vs. casual gaming, etc.)

I’m actually looking forward to the interviews that happen with people outside of gaming... mom groups, for example. Even groups that are focused on marketing and advertising and are interested in how Intellivision is doing things differently. Their context will be different and I think (hope!) we’ll get questions that allow some really insightful conversations.

Was I the only one who found the article on ADHD and the Amico that Tommy linked to some time back really interesting? That’s where you start to see some interesting, context-expanding info on what an Amico can be for people, or just generally what gaming is like in that world.

Uh... sorry for the mini-essay. I really just intended to say I’m glad Tommy will be moving on soon, then some other thoughts popped into my head...

1 hour ago, AtariSociety said:

If they don't offer to take you fly fishing and interview at the same time... yeh maybe best to skip. 

Veggie Dogs served at the campsite that night with O'Doul's just for you.

No guarantee Alien's will not be present.

👽

TJ

 

btw @Tommy Tallarico  when was the last time you went camping... I mean semi roughing it in a tent, etc....

Have you ever fly fished??? or fished in recent years?

Is it OK we have @OEB_Pete and @Michael Garvey come along as nothing would be finer to see all 3 of you fishing in a river and playing with trout.

🎣

TJ

9 minutes ago, AtariSociety said:

btw @Tommy Tallarico  when was the last time you went camping... I mean semi roughing it in a tent, etc....

Have you ever fly fished??? or fished in recent years?

Is it OK we have @OEB_Pete and @Michael Garvey come along as nothing would be finer to see all 3 of you fishing in a river and playing with trout.

🎣

TJ

That would be awesome.   I know nothing about fishing and only went a few times as a kid but you can teach me

Just saw some Monopoly footage from Ubisoft. Looks pretty cool.

All great ideas. 
 
If anyone here wants to reach out and message/tweet any of these folks... please feel free to do so.  You can tell them to just PM on Twitter (as I believe most of them have Twitter accounts).

Tommy,

You said if the new merchandise isn't in the IE shop by 4/30, you would extend the expiration date of the 25% off coupon for those who pre-ordered the FE/VIP.  So, my question is, will a new coupon be sent with the new expiration date on it?

51 minutes ago, Jake67 said:

Uh... sorry for the mini-essay. I really just intended to say I’m glad Tommy will be moving on soon, then some other thoughts popped into my head...

Thank you for the insightful post!  It crystallizes something I've also perceived about these "critics" of the Amico.  The more I see of them, and the more I get a sense of their evident range of interests and their overall life experience, the more unimpressed I am.  Whatever their incredibly narrow areas of interest might be, that seems to be all that they know and all that they do.  It's no wonder their tiny little minds are boggled by the Amico, which is designed for the kinds of gaming experiences that would appeal to normal people, because they don't really understand normal people and don't seem all that interested in trying.  It would also explain why they make such a big deal over trivial issues: for most people, such issues would barely be worth arguing over, but in their narrow context, those issues make up their entire world.

I too am glad that Tommy is thinking of moving on to other venues and more mainstream audiences.  He's made a valiant effort to address the "critics" and to counter their misinformation—I greatly enjoyed the most recent ReviewTechUSA interview—but after a certain point, the old saying about "casting pearls before swine" comes to mind.