Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

Let me introduce a relaxing offtopic.

As an European who started playing videogames in the late 80s, I didn't know the Intellivision existed until 2012, thanks to Classic Game Room reviewing the Intellivision II, some Intellivision games and the famous controller.

I forgot about it for years, but after the initial Amico trailer I was interested in discovering more about this console, as games looked pretty original for the time and many were focused on multiplayer. So, I watched this video that shows some seconds of gameplay of 150 Intellivision games and was pleasantly surprised about the quality and huge variety of the games.

However, I have never played the system, so I wanted to ask you guys... how was having an Intellivision like? Were the games as fun as they look? Was the controller as bad as they say? I remember reading that you can not press a directional button AND another button simultaneously... is that true?

Intellivision launched 40 years ago. It was interestingly different. Nostalgic talk about the old system is probably best for another thread in the retro section, lest folks get any more confused that Amico is a completely different thing for a different time. 

56 minutes ago, IntelliMission said:

Let me introduce a relaxing offtopic.

 

As an European who started playing videogames in the late 80s, I didn't know the Intellivision existed until 2012, thanks to Classic Game Room reviewing the Intellivision II, some Intellivision games and the famous controller.

 

I forgot about it for years, but after the initial Amico trailer I was interested in discovering more about this console, as games looked pretty original for the time and many were focused on multiplayer. So, I watched this video that shows some seconds of gameplay of 150 Intellivision games and was pleasantly surprised about the quality and huge variety of the games.

 

However, I have never played the system, so I wanted to ask you guys... how was having an Intellivision like? Were the games as fun as they look? Was the controller as bad as they say? I remember reading that you can not press a directional button AND another button simultaneously... is that true?

I got an Intellivision for Christmas in 1981 and I loved it and I love the controllere..they were perfect for playing games like Baseball or the Intellivoice games but where the controller really shines was playing Burger Time...you can easily guide the chef around with the disc and it controlled much better than the NES version...having the Intellivision in 1981 was a huge deal because it was the top of the line at the time..I had just about every game released for the system up until 1984 including rare games like Congo Bongo and the ECS computer add on..one thing I will say is that I also had an Intellivision 2 and I did not like those controllers at all...the membrane keypad was terrible and the controller cramped your hand 

2 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Microsoft was just a little early to the game

Exactly. I think Sony even filed a patent a few years back for a system that would prevent people to lend games, but they let Microsoft get all the heat for it - and made fun of them.

Tommy seems to have gone radio silent in the last couple of days. He hasn't tweeted or responded here since before the "Completely Unnecessary Apologycast". Hope he's just busy making great games.

Less drama and more games sounds like a good idea. Wasn't this meant as a Q&A thread?

Listen up as you're all going to get exactly ONE warning on this. 

The next person who tries to purposely stir up drama is going to get perma-booted from this thread.  I don't care what your reasons are or if the other kiddies are doing it too.  If I see it, you get the boot. 

Don't test me on this for it will end poorly.

17 hours ago, Blarneo said:

and Sony kind of egged it on too... good marketing for them

Like this classic bit of video:

One reason I loved this is that the Xbox One announcement was made by Don Mattrick, founder of a game company here in Vancouver, BC called Distinctive Software that became EA Canada in 1991.  In the late 90's, the guy on the right in the Sony video, Adam Boyes, was a tester at EA Canada.  He went on to become Sony's VP of 3rd Party Relations when he made this video. So for me, an old time tester from EA Canada, it was amazing to see Adam sticking it to uncle Donny.

17 hours ago, Blarneo said:

 Dragonfire though, begs for an adventure platforming expansion way beyond the 2 screen arcade type game it originally was. I hope it's designers agree.

Maybe but that doesn't strike me as what the Amico is all about.  I'd want more screens than 2, sure, but I was  envisioning something more "arcadey", if that's a word.  Something involving more than one player where you compete at collecting treasure and dodging fireballs.  Other players could play a dragon, trying to stop the treasure hunters.  That to me says Amico more than an adventure platforming game.

That works too. DF just needs to be bigger than it was. I bought it in a clearance bin in 1984 and was like "That's it?" The premise has potential for expansion.

I feel like Pat's video was uncalled for. And he took Tommy's tweets the wrong way. They didn't seem to be attacking Pat in my opinion. Tommy just has a certain way of talking mixed with a little sarcasm, maybe a little old school in your face, but with no ill intentions and i think Pat took it the wrong way. Nothing that deserved an attack video. I think Pat hinted that he would of preferred that conversation happen via email and not back and forth on Twitter. So i guess in his eyes that = i'm being attacked and i better make a video slamming him. 

Tommy might not be 100% innocent. You can't say that the real marketing hasn't started yet but go out of your way to correct people for wrong info. 

1 hour ago, insertclevernamehere said:

Maybe but that doesn't strike me as what the Amico is all about.  I'd want more screens than 2, sure, but I was  envisioning something more "arcadey", if that's a word.  Something involving more than one player where you compete at collecting treasure and dodging fireballs.  Other players could play a dragon, trying to stop the treasure hunters.  That to me says Amico more than an adventure platforming game.

That sounds awesome actually, and very fun.  I can see my kids and I enjoying something like that together.

1 hour ago, insertclevernamehere said:

I was  envisioning something more "arcadey", if that's a word.  Something involving more than one player where you compete at collecting treasure and dodging fireballs.

It really depends on what you mean with "competition." Since the "Karma engine" will be at the heart of the system, I believe it is safe to say that Intellivision does not emphasize "competition," at least not in an arcade or e-sports sense.

What I expect of Amico games is to use "competition" as a "decor," not as a goal.

For example, I did play Carcassonne (the board game) with my mother a few times. It's one of the few board games she somewhat likes, but the difference in skill between me and her is enormous. I could utterly crush her every time if I wanted to. However, my goal when I play with my mother is not really to win, but simply to "connect" with her. To me, it's an activity I'm doing with her, not a competition against her.

That's what I want with Amico games. I don't want to play Amico games to prove that I'm better than my mother, my niece or my friends. I just want a tool I can use to connect with them.

Back in 2003, a friend of mine introduced me to a video game called Trackmania. He loved it and wanted to play it with me. I tried the game and I loved it too. The problem is I quickly became much better than him. He had absolutely no chance at all of winning any single race. Trackmania was a pure competitive game, so the result is we stopped playing that game together.

I don't want Amico games to be like that. It's OK to use competition superficially, but the emphasis should not be on competition.

15 minutes ago, Papy said:

I don't want Amico games to be like that. It's OK to use competition superficially, but the emphasis should not be on competition.

Well I guess there may be an option to play cooperatively but TT has already mentioned how they will tackle differing skill levels in competitive games to make the experience fairer and more enjoyable for those with lower skill levels.  Basically, the difficulty will adjust as you play for each individual playing.  If you're doing better than other player(s), each game somehow makes it more difficult just for you and/or easier for the other player, such as adjusting paddle sizes in Pong for example.  The better player's paddle will shrink and the lesser player's paddle will increase. That sort of thing. I thought that was a really great idea.

For whatever it's worth, I don't see how there is any but the most superficial resemblance between the Intellivision Amico and the Coleco Chameleon.  They're both projects with the stated goal of creating a game console, but that's about it.  When you look at the people involved, the years of experience and the expertise in relevant areas that they bring to it, the market research they've done, the clarity of their focus on the market and their target user base, the framework they've put together for managing game development projects and for attracting new developers, and just about any other basis of comparison, the Intellivision Amico project is so much more credible than the Coleco Chameleon could ever hope to be that they don't even belong in the same conversation.  I'm glad that people still remember the Chameleon as a cautionary tale, but at this point, those who are still making constant callbacks to it are only making themselves look willfully ignorant of what the Amico project is trying to do.  So, how about we stop "crying Chameleon" and give the Amico the benefit of the doubt and an honest chance.

I also don't agree that the Intellivision hasn't "earned a fan base," to paraphrase something that was said a few pages back.  The original Blue Sky Rangers are among those behind it, and they've spent many years successfully marketing the Intellivision library and properties in novel ways, from the "Intellivision Lives!" and "Intellivision Rocks!" collections to the various plug-and-plays to the Nintendo DS collection to the multiple versions of Intellivision games that have been released for phones and other mobile platforms.  Not all of those efforts have been equally successful, but the fact that they're still at it should be a sign that they know what they're doing and that they've successfully built and maintained a reliable fan base.  (That fan base would include me, even though I didn't grow up with the Intellivision and didn't play my first Intellivision game until my mid-20s.)

I suffered through the podcast, and someone used the word dismissive. . .and that's a perfect word for it. Have an opinion? Fine. State it. Want to rip a concept? Also fine, but back up your argument. But when every third phrase is "I don't know" and then you repeatedly state a talking point or two that is flat out wrong, that's something completely different.

And forget Shark! Shark! I'd pay $500 just to play a quality BurgerTime and Bump N Jump game again.

Just a thought , Can we not get back to what this thread is supposed to be... "Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A"

Maybe start another thread for debating , speculating,personal opinions,and comparing the Amico with past ventures or  what ever else is going on here the last several pages of this thread.  

It's kind of confusing trying to follow what is real and not real on this topic now.. lol  

I don't speak for the moderators, but I personally am fine with folks asking tough questions, offering criticism, or even saying they think there are serious issues.  As long as folks ask based off of the facts they know (can be very few facts) and don't resort to name calling.  The same applies equally to the replies and answers.  In the end, this is how Q&A often works, even if it gets messy sometimes.

Note that YouTuber news-review-commentator personalities are held to higher standards than above.

As for comparisons to past retro consoles, unfortunately the comparisons are inevitable since there are so many that promised big but died.  Toss in the Coleco Chamelon mess and the retro community has justifiably become weary and skeptical.  That said, Tommy and crew have spent time studying the past industry failures.  In some of Tommy's early Amico  interviews, he walks though various consoles and explains what they did wrong and how the Amico will be different (ex: the Ouya, not using Kickstarter, missed opportunities admitted by the console companies, etc).  It is to be expect that some of the same questions will be asked repeatedly by different folks.

12 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

Let me introduce a relaxing offtopic.

 

As an European who started playing videogames in the late 80s, I didn't know the Intellivision existed until 2012, thanks to Classic Game Room reviewing the Intellivision II, some Intellivision games and the famous controller.

 

I forgot about it for years, but after the initial Amico trailer I was interested in discovering more about this console, as games looked pretty original for the time and many were focused on multiplayer. So, I watched this video that shows some seconds of gameplay of 150 Intellivision games and was pleasantly surprised about the quality and huge variety of the games.

 

However, I have never played the system, so I wanted to ask you guys... how was having an Intellivision like? Were the games as fun as they look? Was the controller as bad as they say? I remember reading that you can not press a directional button AND another button simultaneously... is that true?

I apologize for quoting my own message, but I have raised a new thread for that, in case someone wants to participate.

happy camper

Are all the games shown in the video completed? Is the hardware and controller setup final? I'm gonna flat out say the controller looks like it's gonna miss the mark and I would like to know if there is a conventional controller available from launch. With 10 million going towards advertising alone, when can we expect to see more than a quick sizzle real?

5 minutes ago, Shawn said:

Are all the games shown in the video completed? 

The UI elements look like placeholders especially on the two car games. The missile on Astromash has zero texture to it. Most developers put a *WIP* stamp as to not confuse people. I don't think these are completed games that's why we are only seeing 1 second snippets. Maybe this is the look they are going for, I donno, but really looks incomplete. 

3 hours ago, Shawn said:

I'm gonna flat out say the controller looks like it's gonna miss the mark and I would like to know if there is a conventional controller available from launch.

Why do you imagine the controller is "gonna miss the mark"? Considering the casual gamer is used holding a smartphone in his hand to play games, I tend to believe a controller that kind of look like a smartphone is a good thing for this console.

As for having a "conventional controller", considering the touch screen, I'm not sure what exactly you imagine. I know there are gamepads with a tiny touch screen in the middle, but I don't think that model would be usable for Amico games. Anyway, apart from a fear of the unknown, I don't see why you want so much a "conventional controller" for games that are not "conventional". Am I missing something?

6 hours ago, Shawn said:

Are all the games shown in the video completed? Is the hardware and controller setup final? I'm gonna flat out say the controller looks like it's gonna miss the mark and I would like to know if there is a conventional controller available from launch. With 10 million going towards advertising alone, when can we expect to see more than a quick sizzle real?

if you're looking for a traditional controller, Amico is not for you, you're missing the approach of this console

4 hours ago, vprette said:

if you're looking for a traditional controller, Amico is not for you, you're missing the approach of this console

I’m sure people thought the same thing about the wii remote. What a crazy looking controller that must have looked like to gamers. Although, Nintendo did end up putting out a wii standard controller and game cube style controller for the wii. 

There does seem to be a lot of maybes for this system, which I think may be confusing to people. Although, it’s not the fairest comparison, the same kind of “maybe next year” talk goes on with the flashbacks.