Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

1 hour ago, sanguinesonata said:

well it was definitely the way to go.... having someone that loved you intricately involved in your education as opposed to being taught by cold strangers who are getting paid to care. the reason i asked was because i've always enjoyed reading your posts as you have a very distinct, poetic prose that enables you to communicate and elucidate your thoughts most effectively. i've always thought you were highly educated, and i've been meaning to ask you if you had a degree in either english or journalism. i'm a firm believer that if every mom stayed at home and educated her own children instead of giving them over to the state, then the world would unquestionably be a better place.

Well, thank you very much!  (I'm sure Mom would be pleased to hear that, too.)  In my "line of work," I usually get nothing but complaints about what I write, so I greatly appreciate the compliment. 

As it happens, I decided to get a minor in English to go with my major in Computer Science.  I find that people who come from a technical background often do not put enough effort into developing their communication skills, so I was very concerned to learn to be a good writer.  I usually edit my posts two or three times before I'm happy with them, so I sometimes take it too far, but at least it's been good practice!

These "gamers" are trying to judge a family console and they don't have families or kids. If they are married with kids I feel very bad for them. Most of them speak for children, often saying kids only play Fortnite or Minecraft.

We're not talking about 12-15 year old kids sitting in their room, though. We're talking about kids playing something with their parents, or grandparents, or very young kids... Like 3-7... Who can play this along with their parents. 

Of course there is an age group of tweens or what have you that aren't going to care about playing these games. There's also an age group of adults that aren't. I find the fact they keep targeting kids over and over again really strange. The marketing has never even been for kids or young teens. It's always been adults to play something with their young kids, or people to play with an older generation.

The vast majority of people aren't worried about "ultra-realism" and what kind of processor the machine has, they don't even know what processors are. These gamers barely even know. They just know the "teraflop" word. But these people are so narrow-minded they think that everyone has the same interests and narrow world view about Xbox and Playstation as they do. 

These people are just completely mistaken regardless of how much information is available to them, and when they are given honest info, they find it "suspicious." All I can say is, lol. 

2 hours ago, [email protected] said:

Hay Tommy what about all the cancelled games that never came out ? Will there be remakes of them?

I would like to see this as well. Maybe, the original keyboard games could also be included.

2 hours ago, sanguinesonata said:

i'm a firm believer that if every mom stayed at home and educated her own children instead of giving them over to the state, then the world would unquestionably be a better place.

I like many of you grew up in the era of stay at home moms,and I think we are better for it. That being said, I dont think most parents are even remotely educated enough to replace teachers and teach their kids higher math, science, english etc. Also to get by in this world a lot of it falls back to people skills and you need to grow up around a lot of people to get those skills ( aka you need to go to school). Popularity isnt just important in high school, good people skills makes jobs and life easier as well. 

14 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

That being said, I dont think most parents are even remotely educated enough to replace teachers and teach their kids higher math, science, english etc. Also to get by in this world a lot of it falls back to people skills and you need to grow up around a lot of people to get those skills ( aka you need to go to school).

We homeschooled our kids all the way through graduation, but come junior high, we enrolled them in an online school where they had regular teachers for every subject. Not “co-op” teachers where a parent who was smart in one area tackled a subject, but actual, credentialed teachers at a credentialed online school. (Of which there are many these days.) They were still considered “homeschooled” by our state, though. In our case, you’re right... we weren’t going to do a great job of teaching a lot of school topics at a high level. And I’ve met plenty of parents who probably should never, ever, in a million years, consider schooling their own kids. I’ve got a number of relatives who are school teachers and it’s a gift and talent that isn’t easy to replicated just because they’re your own kids.

The people-skills thing is an interesting topic because, being public-schooled myself, I did encounter some homeschooled kids and they did seem a bit socially awkward, or at least very quiet around strangers. (I’m having a flashback to a particular South Park episode with homeschooled kids.) What I came to believe through lots of experience and exposure to homeschool families over the years is that it was more to do with the kid’s personality than anything else. 

I don’t consider myself (or wife) overly social, yet my kids are somehow super social. They’re a lot bolder than I was at their age. Part of that is, despite being homeschooled, they did activities with other kids, and interacted with a lot of other adults since they were little. And I believe part of it is just the way they’re wired even though I don’t completely understand how they turned out that way. But that’s just my take from my experiences. 

40 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

Also to get by in this world a lot of it falls back to people skills and you need to grow up around a lot of people to get those skills

i agree with you, but the best way for a child/teenager to develop people skills and learn how to communicate  properly and effectively is to hang out with adults. hanging around a bunch of kids your own age all the time only breeds stupidity and foolishness, and will inevitably always lead to trouble. if you want someone to grow into a mature adult that knows how to handle and carry himself in this world, then there can be no greater, shining, visual model than one's own parents; which is why a child needs to hang out with his/her mother and father as much as possible.

1 hour ago, 1001lives said:

The vast majority of people aren't worried about "ultra-realism" and what kind of processor the machine has, they don't even know what processors are. These gamers barely even know. They just know the "teraflop" word. But these people are so narrow-minded they think that everyone has the same interests and narrow world view about Xbox and Playstation as they do. 

 

I know a pair of completely unnecessary podcasters with curly and long hair staring at each other in a toy box that made fun of the "Teraflop" bragging on MS's announcement of XboxOneX back 3 years ago & that 4k games weren't necessary because 4K TVs only had 4% penetration... and that graphics weren't important to gamers.

Funny how narratives change with the times huh?

So big question.  Tommy

Victorian axe canon. 

How much energy have you gotten it up to?  And how far have you shot it.....?

And yes! As a matter of fact, the wilds of the ACTUAL Congo Rainforest always has utility boxes placed strategically the jungle.

40 minutes ago, CurlyQ said:

That is...

AWESOME!

I'd buy a pair!

39 minutes ago, sanguinesonata said:

i agree with you, but the best way for a child/teenager to develop people skills and learn how to communicate  properly and effectively is to hang out with adults. hanging around a bunch of kids your own age all the time only breeds stupidity and foolishness, and will inevitably always lead to trouble. if you want someone to grow into a mature adult that knows how to handle and carry himself in this world, then there can be no greater, shining, visual model than one's own parents; which is why a child needs to hang out with his/her mother and father as much as possible.

Absolutely.  I've heard the "socialization" argument before, but to me, that's one of the arguments for home-schooling, not against it.  What do people usually mean by "socialization," anyway?  They mean acquiring the social and behavioral skills to function in the modern world as an independent, autonomous, and productive member of society.  The only way to get those skills is through learning, by observation and imitation, from other people who have already acquired these skills—in other words, adults.  Students in public schools are crammed into rooms all day with other children of roughly commensurate ages, so they don't have the opportunity to acquire very many social skills that they don't already possess, because everyone is at about the same level.  It's an artificial environment that (in my opinion) does more harm than good.

This is one of the things I like so much about the social aspect of the Amico.  As a system designed for families to use and enjoy together, I think it has the potential to be a powerful educational and socialization tool.  This is just an example, but imagine a complex math problem being shown on the TV screen for a child to solve.  Imagine the child being able to use the hand controller screen as a "scratchpad" for working the problem out step by step—think of the Math Input Panel on Windows and you've got the idea—while the parent looks on with their hand controller screen to see the step-by-step solution.  This helps the parents (particularly if they're rusty in math) because it guides them through the problem also, and it helps the student because it gives the parents the opportunity to offer different levels of instruction depending on how the student is doing: if the student makes a mistake, the parents can stop them right away, or they can "bookmark" the step where the student went astray and then help them trace backwards after they arrive at an incorrect answer.  Through it all, the parent and the child have had a social experience, because they solved the problem together through cooperation.

Lots of exciting potential!

On 4/25/2020 at 10:30 PM, bigdaddygamestudio said:

Ok Quick fun question.

 

During your gaming life what games were system sellers for you?   You know as soon as you saw or played it you had to have that system.  

Like many of you I have had a ton of systems, but at various times I wasnt always the earliest adapter so sometimes it was a game that sold me the system.

 

Three come to mind.

 

Smurfs Adventure made me have to have a Colecovision

Castlevania made me get a Nintendo literal right then. We stopped playing and we drove to a store and I bought the NES

Resident Evil made me get a Playstation

 

 

Space Raiders for the Atari 2600

Final Fantasy and Genghis Khan for the NES

Might and Magic 2 for Apple 2e (Europe Ablaze almost would have been a system seller)

SimCity, Civilization, Pool of Radiance, and Eye of the Beholder for PC

Link to the Past for the SNES

Master of Monsters and Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday for the Genesis

I skipped the consoles of the late 90's as I became strictly a PC gamer.

Medal of Honor: Frontline and Wrath of Tenchu for PS2

Pokemon Diamond for NDS

Final Fantasy 1 & 2 Dawn of Souls for GBA (Micro)

Final Fantasy 1 for Sony PSP

I had Fire Red that I played with the DS and later bought Leaf Green and two GBAs just so I could trade and try and fill my Pokedex/s.

Oh, and recently I bought a piece of garbage Chinese Gameboy looking thing that plays a shiteton of NES games just so I could play Galaga wherever and whenever I want. It hasn't arrived yet so I have no idea if it is going to be any good.

As I look at this list, a lot of the early games that hooked me were my first exposure to the capabilities of video gaming or the upgrades that the new system offered. By the time it got to the PS3 and Xbox360 though, I got off the new system bandwagon after having collected over 120 games for the PS2-some having never been opened.

Interestingly enough, one of those games I bought for the PS2 was Final Fantasy Origins originally for the PS1 (I also bought a PS memory card just for that game), and I think that started my entry into retro-gaming. It was new and better than the original but offered very similar play to what hooked me years earlier. I later bought Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls for the DS and then the Micro to really play it on the go and later did the same for the PSP so I could hack it and install it on a card and not need the disk anymore. I think its funny that I specifically bought two systems for a game that I beat thirty years ago and to this date is the only game I've beaten in every form I could find. I want a patch or something.

On 4/25/2020 at 10:30 PM, bigdaddygamestudio said:

Ok Quick fun question.

 

During your gaming life what games were system sellers for you?   You know as soon as you saw or played it you had to have that system.  

Like many of you I have had a ton of systems, but at various times I wasnt always the earliest adapter so sometimes it was a game that sold me the system.

 

Three come to mind.

 

Smurfs Adventure made me have to have a Colecovision

Castlevania made me get a Nintendo literal right then. We stopped playing and we drove to a store and I bought the NES

Resident Evil made me get a Playstation

 

Astrosmash for Intellivision. 

Contra for NES

Ghouls & Ghosts for Genesis

Super Metroid for SNES

Starfox64, Wave Race & F-ZeroX for N64 (it took all 3 that made me give in)

Sonic Adventure & Gauntlet Legends for Dreamcast

Gamecube was a day one purchase.

Geometry Wars (believe it or not!) Xbox 360

Forza 5, Ryse: Son of Rome on Xbox One-also a day 1 purchase

20 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

Absolutely.  I've heard the "socialization" argument before, but to me, that's one of the arguments for home-schooling, not against it.  What do people usually mean by "socialization," anyway?  They mean acquiring the social and behavioral skills to function in the modern world as an independent, autonomous, and productive member of society.  The only way to get those skills is through learning, by observation and imitation, from other people who have already acquired these skills—in other words, adults.  Students in public schools are crammed into rooms all day with other children of roughly commensurate ages, so they don't have the opportunity to acquire very many social skills that they don't already possess, because everyone is at about the same level.  It's an artificial environment that (in my opinion) does more harm than good.

Amen. perfectly stated. i'm gonna write down what you just wrote so i can look at it from time to time. i should probably even print it out and hang it up on my wall. 

On 4/25/2020 at 9:30 PM, bigdaddygamestudio said:

Ok Quick fun question.

 

During your gaming life what games were system sellers for you?   You know as soon as you saw or played it you had to have that system.  

 

Night Stalker for the Intellivision Amico
Shark Shark for the Intellivision Amico

SideSwipers for the Intellivision Amico
Cloudy Mountain for the Intellivision Amico

😍

Tommy,

Good interview with Vara Dark.  I liked the surprise carrying case you showed off for the Amico.  Also I hope you do add a 7th pack in game.

Tommy,

What about a limited edition E.T. Amico console?

On 4/25/2020 at 7:30 PM, bigdaddygamestudio said:

Ok Quick fun question.

 

During your gaming life what games were system sellers for you?   You know as soon as you saw or played it you had to have that system.  

Like many of you I have had a ton of systems, but at various times I wasnt always the earliest adapter so sometimes it was a game that sold me the system.

 

Three come to mind.

 

Smurfs Adventure made me have to have a Colecovision

Castlevania made me get a Nintendo literal right then. We stopped playing and we drove to a store and I bought the NES

Resident Evil made me get a Playstation

 

 

Well I was pretty poor growing up so I normally got my consoles 2nd hand.  1st console I bought new was at Costco with all stars with mario paint.  Really good deal it was like getting 5 games packed in. So to the haters that value doesn't mean anything they are wrong. I felt good get all of that for one price.  Think my mom still has it lol.

Ps1 I want it because my friend had it and we SHOCKER we loved playing the road &track test drive. Use to force traffic into my friend making him crash. He loved the black lambo I loved the red supra.  Oh the memories. So I had to have a ps1. 

Bought the original xbox for ,you guessed it Halo. 

Never once have I ever preordered a system.  Till the Amico.  

1 hour ago, CurlyQ said:

I'm in for a pair. Where is the purchase link? 

15 minutes ago, haplo13 said:

Night Stalker for the Intellivision Amico
Shark Shark for the Intellivision Amico

SideSwipers for the Intellivision Amico
Cloudy Mountain for the Intellivision Amico

😍

Oh' yeah! I forgot my Amico pre-order!

Blarneo's Math.... err' all the Intellivision & Imagic games I've seen reimagined so far... And R-Type eventually.🤭

1 hour ago, CurlyQ said:

I will take a size 9 😎

39 minutes ago, Intellivision Master said:

Tommy,

 

Good interview with Vara Dark.  I liked the surprise carrying case you showed off for the Amico.  Also I hope you do add a 7th pack in game.

Can Someone post a link for that interview ? Actually I found it and it’s still live if that’s the right one . There are so many interviews and I don’t want to miss any !! 😀

1 hour ago, Relicgamer said:

Well I was pretty poor growing up so I normally got my consoles 2nd hand.  1st console I bought new was at Costco with snes superario all stars with mario paint.  Really good deal it was like getting 5 games packed in. So to the haters that value doesn't mean anything they are wrong. I felt good get all of that for one price.  Think my mom still has it lol.

Ps1 I want it because my friend had it and we SHOCKER we loved playing together the road &track test drive. Use to force traffic into my friend making him crash. He loved the black lambo I loved the red supra.  Oh the memories. So I had to have a ps1. 

Bought the original xbox for ,you guessed it Halo. 

Never once have I ever preordered a system.  Till the Amico.  

1 hour ago, sanguinesonata said:

Absolutely.  I've heard the "socialization" argument before, but to me, that's one of the arguments for home-schooling, not against it.  What do people usually mean by "socialization," anyway?  They mean acquiring the social and behavioral skills to function in the modern world as an independent, autonomous, and productive member of society.  The only way to get those skills is through learning, by observation and imitation, from other people who have already acquired these skills—in other words, adults.  Students in public schools are crammed into rooms all day with other children of roughly commensurate ages, so they don't have the opportunity to acquire very many social skills that they don't already possess, because everyone is at about the same level.  It's an artificial environment that (in my opinion) does more harm than good.

not to belabor the point and I'll leave it at this. 1) You are making the assumption that most children have two parents, a good stable home environment, educated parents etc etc. the simple fact is the majority of children in the US dont.  

2) You also seem to assume that socialization happens at school, it really doesnt, most of it happens away from school with the people you have made connections at school. These relationship and you finding your way early in life via your relationships with peers really does effect your entire life. Kids need the room to find themselves. Like everything in life its finding balance and not eliminating one thing or the other and to be honest the one thing I think that is really contributed to everything wrong in this country and world is...... adults.

anyway back to games