Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

The Intellivision Amico Is Coming in 2020!

One big piece of news to come out of the Portland Retro Game Expo this year was the announcement of the Intellivision Amico. It looks to revision the classic console for the modern era and a few people I knew went to the panel. So far, it's mostly all specs and artistic renderings and a splashy video but if it delivers 80% of what it sets out to do it should be pretty awesome.

With that I have a few questions about it. Do all the game on the system need to be exclusive? Have yet another place to play Indie games might not be a bad thing, new Intellivision included. How are they going to ship this system at an $180 price point? Seems like a very hard target to hit and... Read All One big piece of news to come out of the Portland Retro Game Expo this year was the announcement of the Intellivision Amico. It looks to revision the classic console for the modern era and a few people I knew went to the panel. So far, it's mostly all specs and artistic renderings and a splashy video but if it delivers 80% of what it sets out to do it should be pretty awesome.

With that I have a few questions about it. Do all the game on the system need to be exclusive? Have yet another place to play Indie games might not be a bad thing, new Intellivision included. How are they going to ship this system at an $180 price point? Seems like a very hard target to hit and be a quality system. Why do the controller need wireless charging? I get that Qi is the new hot wireless charging standard but plugging stuff in isn't a big deal for retro enthusiasts and you can save a couple bucks for everything else you want to pack in to the Amico.

In the end i'm really supportive of this system and I think there is room in the market for a new retro enthusiast console that has a modern online ecosystem.

"Almost 40 years after the release of the original Intellivision® home video game system which helped to redefine the video game industry, Intellivision Entertainment is proud to carry on its “Legacy of Firsts” by announcing the brand new revolutionary family home video game console named Amico to be released on October 10th, 2020 (1010 2020). Amico is the Italian word for “friend” or “buddy” and encapsulates an element of the approach and dynamics for what makes the new console so unique and an exciting addition to everyone’s family.

INTELLIVISION AMICO FEATURES AND INFORMATION:

PRICE RANGE (RETAIL)
US $149 - $179

NORTH AMERICAN, UNITED KINGDOM AND EUROPEAN RELEASE DATE
October 10, 2020 (1010 2020)

SOFTWARE OVERVIEW

All games are family friendly and rated “E for Everyone” or “E10+”.

Every game version on the console is EXCLUSIVE.

Quality over quantity! All games must past a strict quality control seal of approval.

Balanced gameplay and design for Equal Opportunity Gaming for all.

All games are downloadable and between US $2.99 - $7.99.

No costly DLC (Downloadable Content) add-on’s or “In-App Purchases”.

Launch to include several built-in reimagined Intellivision Classics (pre-installed in every console) and over 20 games including both reimagined industry classics and brand new exclusive titles via the Intellivision Online Store.

CONTROLLERS

2 wireless Bluetooth controllers (up to 8 player compatible and connectivity).

3 ½ inch (2:3 aspect ratio) Color Touchscreen.

Pioneering tilting positional disc with surrounding interactive LED border.

4 arcade-style tactile feedback buttons.

Gyroscope & Accelerometer.

Force feedback.

Controller to be used horizontally or vertically including dominant left or right hand usage.

Qi (pronounced “CHEE”) wireless onboard charging.

Speaker

Microphone

Free downloadable app enables mobile phones as additional controllers (up to 8 players).

HARDWARE & TECHNOLOGY

State of the Art 21st Century 2D Image Processing and Graphics Capability

Intellivision Prism™ Onboard Interactive Lighting Technology.

WiFi/BT & Ethernet Connectivity.

HDMI Video Output.

Multiple USB Ports

System Expansion Interface.

ONLINE

Intellivision Online Store for the ability to purchase additional software.

Multi-player online gaming and structured multi-tiered tournament play.

Time & Space Leaderboard System™ which includes high scores by locations and calendar.

Trophy/Achievement rewards system which awards unique accomplishments to each player.

Cheerful Ghost Radio Mini-Episode: Cheerful Ghost at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo

In this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, Adam and Jon are on the floor at PRGE talking about all the fun they're having while Tim and Travis sit at home and wish they were there.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/22/2018 at 03:48am

A little behind the scenes magic for everyone. Adam and I recorded this episode from our booth and right afterward I texted it to Travis. He cut it up into a show and posted it, which made for a very fun and timely episode. I think it turned out fairly well so i'd expect a few more episodes like this.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/23/2018 at 04:31am

The expo was tons of fun! Thanks for posting this so quickly, Travis!

Timogorgon Member wrote on 10/24/2018 at 03:33am

Can confirm: Wished I was there!
PRGE sounds like a lot of fun!

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/24/2018 at 04:16am

It is. One thing I want to do for next year is demand Travis & Tim fly in and work the expo with us for the weekend.

DEMAND! (see all in caps, must happen)

Timogorgon Member wrote on 10/27/2018 at 04:52am

YOUR WISH IS MY THING I'LL THINK ABOUT AND POSSIBLY CONSIDER.

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

Sign Up / Log In

The Directors Cut Of The Accounting+ Trailer Is The Craziest Thing You're Gonna Watch Today

Not only is the new Accounting+ trailer the craziest thing you might watch today but it's also one of the most entertaining. From the folks behind Rick and Morty & The Stanley Parable come Accounting+ a new VR game for PS VS, Occulus and the HTC Vive. From watching a few minutes of actual gameplay it looks like a cross between Office Simulator, The Stanley Parable and Rick and Morty which makes sense given the creative team behind the game. If I had any kind of VR i'd play this thing immediately but since I don't I imagine that want will die on a pile of other dead ambition. Which seems entirely fitting given the games style and content.

Digital Foundry Does A Comparison & Review of Luigi's Mansion!

Digital Foundry has another incredible comparison review video and apparently I have to share them all so here's one that compares Luigi's Mansion with the original Gamecube and recent 3DS release. Grezzo is the company behind the 3DS port of Luigi's Mansion that has previous worked on the amazing 3DS ports of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Luigi's Mansion seems to be similarly as good but this time Grezze had to make the game run on somewhat limited hardware. The choices they made in some ways were better than the original game and very clever due to the limitations of the 3DS.

"What made Luigi's Mansion so special when it launched with GameCube and how much of... Read All

World of Final Fantasy Review

Azurephile gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Azurephile gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Review

Recommendation: Kind of around "meh" and "rad"

Final Fantasy meets Pokemon

Many familiar Final Fantasy monsters and characters

A couple PC quirks

We no longer have to imagine a world where Final Fantasy meets Disney, that of course is Kingdom Hearts. But there’s a new FF blend, it’s like FF meets Pokemon and it’s interesting. I’ve had this on my wish list and it recently became a $20 game (50% off), so I picked it up.

In World of Final Fantasy, you wake up (late as always) and find yourself as a twin of mirage keepers. Mirages are basically monsters and you can catch them, much like Pokemon. However this isn’t a game where you have monsters fighting monsters, it... Read All Review

Recommendation: Kind of around "meh" and "rad"

Final Fantasy meets Pokemon

Many familiar Final Fantasy monsters and characters

A couple PC quirks

We no longer have to imagine a world where Final Fantasy meets Disney, that of course is Kingdom Hearts. But there’s a new FF blend, it’s like FF meets Pokemon and it’s interesting. I’ve had this on my wish list and it recently became a $20 game (50% off), so I picked it up.

In World of Final Fantasy, you wake up (late as always) and find yourself as a twin of mirage keepers. Mirages are basically monsters and you can catch them, much like Pokemon. However this isn’t a game where you have monsters fighting monsters, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Instead you stack them on your head. There are also two sizes that the main characters can be, called Lilikins (for small) and Jiants (for large). Lilikins can have a mirage on top of their head, but they may be able to actually ride a large mirage. As a Jiant, you can have two mirages stacked on your head. Each mirage has a size, which can change as it….”evolves.” There are small, medium, and large mirages. Small ones get stacked on top of medium ones, while large ones are ones that you stack yourself on top of.

There are a number of unique mirages, many of them familiar monsters within the world of Final Fantasy as a whole, such as chocobos and cactuars. Each mirage has it’s own way of what you need to do to capture it, such as use physical attacks, magic, or give it a status ailment. You can find out how to get the mirage into capture mode by using Libra on it. Libra can also tell you the mirage's elemental resistances. Each element has it’s own weakness and strength and it goes something like this; fire is strong against ice, but weak against water. Ice is strong against wind, which is strong against earth, which is strong against thunder, which is strong against water. Dark and light seem to be strong against each other. So, it’s not quite set up like Pokemon, but it is kind of similar.

The reason capturing mirages is so important is because mirages have abilities (like Cure) and stats. You make yourself more powerful by stacking a mirage (or two). Areas in the game seem to have similar mirages with similar and expected strengths and weaknesses. For instance, in a fire place you can expect to find fire based mirages like the Bomb.

The game does a pretty decent job of telling you how to go about capturing mirages and how to stack them to receive their benefits. It also explains that, for instance, if you have two mirages stacked that have the ability of Fire, it will in turn give you the upgraded spell, Fira. You are limited to how many mirages you can keep with you. The rest go in a special storage area that easily accessible at save points.

One thing that makes this game a bit more enticing for fans of Final Fantasy is that it contains areas and characters in previous Final Fantasy games. For instance, I met up with Tifa who lead me to Nifelheim, but there are many others!

The PC version is kind of confusing in a way. When I first started the game, it was in windowed mode, which I didn’t like. I went into the options/settings menu, but didn’t see anything to change it. However, there’s a small configuration tool you can select after clicking on the “play” button on Steam. Here you can chose to configure it or jump in the game. This still doesn’t add very much configuration, but you can change to full screen and a different resolution. It’s actually simple, it’s just a bit buried.

Another interesting thing is that I wanted to play with a controller. I have an Xbox 360 controller I use for PC gaming. At first it was kind of difficult because the game was telling me which keys to press instead of which buttons. Then, I noticed in the options menu that you can select which input device is shown in how to do things. I thought this was cool, even though it didn’t auto detect.

Mega Man 11 Is Getting Amazing Reviews + Digital Foundry System Comparison!

Mega Man 11 finally hit and the reviews are coming in and so far, it looks like it's one of the best games to come out in quite some time. Cygnus Destroyer, a YouTuber known for his Innocent Until Proven Guilty series has a fun Mega Man 11 review and to put it simply... he finds it "mega magnificent." You can watch his review at the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4CZvay5gHU

Digital Foundry has also reviewed Mega Man 11 and finds it similarly as incredible but goes much more in depth and compares each version on PS4, XBox, Switch and PC and all the various versions to the frame rate level. It's the quality you'd expect from Digital Foundry and I appreciate... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 37: Disenchantment

In this episode, we talk all about Matt Groening's new Netflix series, Disenchantment, and whether we think it lives up to the standard of The Simpsons and Futurama. But first we discuss what we've been playing and watching over the last month and discuss games that might not need sequels (thanks to @noigelarcane on Twitter for the idea).

The Making Of Fallout Shelter

Fallout Shelter is one of the best phone games i've ever played. It's a fun post apocalypse vault dweller simulator reminiscent of SimCity, SimTower, Progress Quest and a bit of FTL. Noclip just released a Fallout Shelter documentary as part of their recent Bethesda series that takes a look at the making of Fallout Shelter from it's early days as a Fallout 3 trailer to the E3 2015 launch. They also mention that Bethesda built an entirely new mobile team after the incredible success of Fallout Shelter (120 million players) and that team is carrying over to their upcoming phone game Elder Scrolls Blades. The video even hints a bit at Elder Scrolls blades at the end and... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 36: Hold the Dark

Netflix is on fire lately, releasing new movies and shows at light speed. Recently they released Hold the Dark, by Jeremy Saulnier (director of Blue Ruin and The Green Room) and in this episode Jon and Travis give their reviews and talk about some of the fan reaction. If your hyper-specific Netflix categories suggest that you watch dark, slower paced, mysterious, cerebral movies, check out Hold the Dark and then come check out the episode!

30th Anniversary Retrospective Documentary of Super Mario Bros. 2

We all know Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't the follow up to Super Mario Bros. in Japan and that it was originally Doki Doki Panic and translated into English for an American audience. That reason being the big factor on why some Mario purists don't consider it a proper Mario game. Super Mario Bros. 2 celebrates it's 30th anniversary this year and as such Arcadeology has a focused retrospective on the game and it's history in the franchise. It's the deepest dive about Mario 2 i've seen to date and it showcases many of the improvements made over Doki Doki Panic. In fact, i'd say Mario 2 is superior to Doki in nearly every way and since Doki started out as a prototype for... Read All