2020: the Year of the Neo Geo, NOT the Intellivision Amico.

the strongest argument i've got
in favor of monogamy is this if you got two or three wives you were going to get so sick and tired of nba jam no i mean what do you got four player games four player cooperative games what do you what do you really got micro machines on the sega genesis with those extra controller ports on the top of the of the cartridge no no don't don't tell me i have some very highly educated people minds don't write into me saying that there were a lot of great four player games on the terrible graphics 16. no there aren't no they are there are youtube channels saying that they were great four player games for total rapid sixty especially the cd-rom games because nobody's played they're terrible every single one of them you are going to spend the rest of your life with uh nba jam nba hang time maybe you're going to get that full-size arcade cabinet for teenage mutant ninja turtles you know teenage mutant at the arcade game you're gonna be so sick of that music and by the time you and your three wives are sick of playing it you're going to have kids and then it's going oh my god could we can we just get through to halftime this game bha it's gonna [Music] oh oh yeah yeah you filthy [ __ ] take that here here take one of those get out of here oh yeah come on [Music] one of one of the strongest arguments for monogamy is that really you know it's it's kind of two players or nothing the world of videos and i mean that i mean that okay i mean that if you bought this device i have visible in the background to play one player games alone as an adult to me that's just the saddest thing imagine because all of these games like all video games if you are a fully grown mentally mature adult dude it's like five minutes maximum how long can you possibly as an adult play neo-geo super dodge ball alone [Music] how long can you play neo geo baseball 2020 i forget g was it was that game was it 2080 does the baseball game set in the feat is that is that five minutes of entertainment for all these were arcade games these were games designed to be played standing up five minutes of entertainment maximum and then you get on with your life and of course this is the big advantage in your 2020 if you are interested in getting back into neo geo games and almost every single game on the system is two player simultaneous some of them cooperative some of them competitive that's the appeal that's what okay what led up to me making this momentous decision to buy snk neo geo arcade stick pro that i never intend to play for more than five minutes at a time but then i do play i do play with my significant other with my girlfriend okay you know it was the way this whole thing with uh in television fell apart it was when i totally lost faith in the intellivision project now if you guys don't know i made some youtube videos a little bit optimistic about this in television thing i then made a youtube video saying i think this is complete garbage i've completely lost faith in the project i think it's going to be terrell and then tommy talarico himself gets in touch with me he talks to me for over an hour we do this interview great guy wonderful human being would definitely be a better president of the united states than donald trump but when you buy in in television you are not placing your vote to replace donald trump you are you're you're buying a piece of consumer electronics and like i could break it down each and every justification for why i was interested in the intellivision fell apart during the year 2020 it could have been that the 2020 was the year of the intellivision and it's not it's not for me it's not for anybody but like the rationale for why i thought i've seriously thought you know money's tight around here really uh really really if you guys if you guys don't know i put up an amazon wishlist for books because i was sitting there thinking another 30 dollars for a book about ancient chinese philosophy and i want to say this also i want to say this also even if you play these games for five minutes it will inspire you to reflect on how much more meaningful those books are that you could be reading than this game you're playing i think my catchphrase when i play video games now is this feels like a job i'm not being paid to do i say that all the time it's entertainment but it's entertainment that's somehow so vacuous so meaningless that it will cause you to really reflect on you know what what is meaningful in your life here we go come in come in come here i i i look at every one of these like that my wife come here come here with your lazy eyes there you go yeah take this right in your bread basket you animals okay so you know i was interested in the intellivision and i could set out all these reasons why i was interested because i have a daughter who might now never get to see and i'm employing lawyers and all this crap and maybe eventually no story i have a daughter in television said it was going to be fun for the whole family cooperative multiplayer casual play i guess it reflects the same themes you see here like this is not going to be a system for 400 hour long immersive rpg experiences it's not going to be massively multiplayer online monetized transaction based experience no there were a whole bunch of things they were doing they said no they're gonna return to couch co-op in a sense that's like the implicit theme of this video this was and then there were also these promises about getting back to actually educational software there were these different things moving okay you know what i can start planning for this i can put aside the money to actually buy this thing the intellivision that tommy talarico is is proposing and when that fell apart when i fell apart i just i just sat there and thought about it i just sat there and thought about it it's like you know what i don't know if i'm ever gonna see my daughter again maybe the next time i see her she's gonna be like 16 years old and would completely sneer at the idea of playing kirby's epic yarn with me good example of a cooperative two-player game you can play but you know that's more like for six years old not 16 years old you know it may just be we missed the window of opportunity to play videos that's okay all right so that's you know what when you really think about it in the whole history of video games what would i want to play with microphone what is it not even not even necessarily nostalgia not even stuff i play for most including stuff i never played stephanie and you really there was this one window of opportunity in the history of video games with the neo geo where people were putting a lot of time and effort into making really high quality games that were only meant to be played for five minutes and like almost every single one of them is is too clear as mentioned okay if you got three wives i know i know i have some mormons who are long time if you got through it's not for you it's not gonna work out there's no way you can daisy chain together for neogeo arcade sticks to make where it's two player or nothing and if you're if you're a lonely dude if you live alone don't do this absolutely none of it is worth playing one player like not even for five minutes and again you know even at like pretty much any given time there's a burden of books i should be reading and projects there's better things to do than that and you know five minutes 15 minutes you really start thinking about what it is you could be doing with your if you're playing alone you know as opposed to it but but okay we got a note here right off the bat so here it is the stuff of legends the video game console that every kid our age lusted after are you with me here and every kid our age is like i'm 43. i'll say okay do you know yet i bet you do i can't think of anyone who deserves it more after the road you've traveled enjoy it oh baby are you kidding me when i came to like the end of my rope with the intellivision thing i realize you know what i missed my chance to buy the neo geo hardware the last time this happened and no i don't mean 1991 i mean when there was this short-term opportunity to buy what was called the neo-geo x some people call it the neo-geo x gold all right there was a revival of the neo geo it wasn't perfect a lot of youtube channels criticized the hell out of it but they brought out the old-fashioned solid black joystick and they brought out an emulator system and you could buy the old games there was this window of opportunity to buy a revive neo geo and i missed it right today if you want that it's either impossible to buy you're going to have to buy it from some collector on ebay and in favor of you know what as it happens at this moment when i've lost all faith in the possibility of buying an intel i just think this is garbage tommy talarico wonderful guy wonderful guy and you know whatever some of the music he's made i got respect for too wonderful guy terrible business plan terrible console doomed project the intellivision and it's like and then i'm looking so you know what i actually have this brief opportunity right now to buy this neo geo revival that's going to buy into this you know and if i don't do it now just like the neo geo x before it's going to disappear and you could you could already see the prices going up and up so this is this is telling so the first step the first step i took was this i bought this thing and i bought it in the package where you get two plug-in controllers so you can play two-player or something right and this thing at that time even on amazon you saw the price going up and up and up like within like a week all right like how how is it possible for something to go from like new to like scarce collector's item within like two years of the project being launched it's great and you know if you right now if you look this up on ebay people are paying tons of money you know for these things and like you can probably just tell from the weight i mean there's no intrinsic value in this all the components could go into a cell phone right it's like a cell phone i'm not saying the screen is bad it's beautiful screen tiny tiny but like you know this is what this is it's like a cell phone reformatted to be this simulated arcade cabinet right so that was that was the first step and what you realize as soon as you have bought this thing all right no matter how great the games are you know how much it reminds you of the legacy of the neo geo and whatever maybe maybe it brings back memories for you of being like an 11 year old kid in a pizza restaurant and seeing samurai showdown for the first time you know it may have vote for a lot of people my generation so folks all kinds of memories and for pretty much everyone these were not the games you owned they were the games you could never possibly own it was unattainable but you could glimpse them in a pizza restaurant if you read video game magazines at that time video game magazines raving about them and all kinds of them they probably weren't available in your town or you saw them once when you were in new york city you saw them when you were on vacation somewhere right it's very rare for something to be so mainstream and so tawdry and yet to have this mystique right and that's exactly what neogeo had it also had a mystique because so much of it was just incomprehensible it's in broken english it doesn't make any sense [Music] [Music] they all they all seem to have like a rough idea of what the plot should be this is also the main source of entertainment sitting there and ridiculing these games but you know probably the original japanese barely made sense and you know when he crosses the ocean across the language all right but that's you but if you were an eight-year-old kid if you were a 12 year old kid whatever age when you weren't this drew you in this this game it's trying to speak to me it's trying to tell me a story but i don't know what the hell it is but there was something there and and for all of us i mean all these games in the arcade i only played them for five i never saw level two of the sly spy never ask never you joking i i probably never got to the third enemy in in samurai showdown i was a child a child's skill level no okay but but but this is not about the software you know right as soon as you've bought into this thing what you're going to realize is that the controls are a joke this actual joystick is a joke most of these games most of the games this system is famous for and of course you also get the joy of discovering all kinds of games that are not famous that you've never heard of before get to discover the whole neogeo library right you're going to realize i need a 200 joystick to play these games and that's you know that was the genius of this it's terrible it's a total failure right but like if you can buy this for fifty dollars then you realize what i need to do what i really the really responsible choice i need to make is gonna cost me like like 200 right and you you don't just need one of these no well you're not gonna play these games alone you in your mormon compound with your three wives and your six kids who were all named caleb you're not gonna put some no you're gonna buy two all right in a sense the fatal flaw is the two's the limit because caleb and caleb and caleb they're going to have to learn to share right they're going to learn to take turns it's tragic this sharing sharing is what mormonism is all about okay so what you realize what you realize is that for this library of games whether you play alone or with a special friend what it requires what's what's missing what's missing from your experience is this just just lean in lead into this picture hear that you hear that that's steel steel don't you guys have a saying in detroit like a car is only as good as its crankshaft no something no all right oh my god look at this it's a stuff a legend you want to let you listen to that you animals if you would have grabbed me by my orange mullet back in 1992 while i was sitting there and staring at this console staring at it on the wall and just drooling like this just staring it was impossible do you understand it was impossible it was a 740 dollar gaming console and the games were 250 dollars plus you have to admit to yourself there's no way really for you to appreciate or play these games without hundreds of dollars worth of joystick i mean there's no limit now if you look around and if you know where to look on the internet today you can legitimately buy these for i think less than 100 us dollars each but most of you are going to find them for more already you can you're going to find them for way more on ebay on recent it's amazing already it's gone from mainstream to like collector's item even though they're still making them they're still available new you're going to find them so you may be paying 200 you may be paying 100 but if you're buying two of them then then if you get into modifying and upgrading the components okay so this is a review of more than one thing in this video right we're reviewing the concept of video games you could conceivably play if you are not the kind of person who plays video games it's already a little bit interesting right it's a question of video games you could play with your kid if you've got kids this question of video games you could play with your wife husband whatever these this isn't right and then for me there's this sense that 2020 could have been the year of the intellivision amico and it's not for me it's the year of rediscovering the neogeo but i think i think there really is something special produced by this brief period of time when people were making games you know not trying to keep you captivated at a cell phone for hours so that you'll click to buy a loot box right so you'll pay money to get an upgrade like today this is how games are designed not even games that are designed like you remember final fantasy for the original playstation where like the value for money was getting you to do the same repetitive action again and again for hours you know one of the things that struck me most about playing these games now in 2020 i could never hear the music before like i only ever encountered these games in a pizza restaurant when i was like 11 years old he was wow the music was incredible and the music it's meant to be captivating and draw you in and entertain you for five minutes maximum just like the graphics just like the gameplay you want depth there's no depth none there's a refreshing absence of depth but you can just feel all of the creative energy of this whole team of artists sitting there in japan you know all these guys you can tell that went to art school pouring their heart and soul into trying to make that five minutes for you worth the 25 cents you put in the machine all right sengoku one two and three insanity complete insanity i would nominate sengoku as like the greatest buddhist video game of all time right just a mash-up of completely surreal hell imagery demon imagery reincarnation imagery from you know japanese shinto mythology and buddhism buddhist miscellany right there's no plot there's no i think part of the fun of of playing single is you can make up the plot as you go along right is this you know totally stimulating totally empty experience right and then it's over and like again i mean you know you push the button and something happens on screen and pretty soon you're thinking wasn't i supposed to be reading something don't i you know and that's good that's you know that's good for years uh psychiatrists tried to design different drugs that would create like an aversion to alcohol where you have one drink or two drinks then you wouldn't want you know so that alcoholics could wean themselves off i've actually heard mixed reviews that some of those treatments actually work you know like can you can you medicate alcoholism away well you know maybe you can and maybe you can i i've got to tell you i mean i on the one hand human beings are capable of becoming addicted to a simple deck of playing cards people get addicted to solitaire people get addicted to huffing glue and eating shoe polish all these terrible things could it be that in this brief period when the neogeo you know neo geo was at its peak at its pinnacle you know the strange artist could it be that that was the period when when video games were just in this one format you know the stand-up arcade cabinet when it was actually something kind of harmless that two people could do for five minutes and then get on with us maybe maybe and maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm not gonna get a fan mail from a whole bunch of you about how you got addicted to king of monsters 2 on the neo geo arcade stick and you lost then you dropped out of college and you lost your job and your wife left you and you ruined your life maybe i think the case that was there for the intellivision amico for me was interesting because it was really a case being made against everything that's wrong with video games in the 21st century right i mean that's it's insane it's a terrible marketing strategy but like tommy talarico was arguing this this and this is bad and wrong and terrible about the video game ministry in 2020 and now he's going to come out with something that in all those ways is the antidote he's going to come out with something which is fun for the whole family co-op multiplayer couch gameplay again so multiplayer here meaning like two people maybe three or four sitting in one place at one time looking at a screen together as opposed to you know having a living room where that person's over there on their cell phone and that person's over there on a tablet and they could all be playing if someone else has a laptop computer and someone else has a as a console like the nintendo switch like where video games don't have to be this mutually isolating and deeply engrossing experience that can instead be something that you know for a short time brings people words put it this way where video games are something more like board games right that was what tommy teller telerico pitched and you know then for me there was this tantalizing possibility of educational software and by this strange coincidence i had to pause and reflect that you know what most of the things i would be hoping for in the intellivision amigo they're actually already here they're already available here and now in the legacy of the neogeo very little educational value but if you are learning either chinese or japanese read carefully the text you can actually practice chinese or japanese while playing these games uh if you're highly motivated enough to uh to read carefully [Music] oh yes yes sega master system doing it big time okay look when i was a kid computers were something that existed in one room of the house for one hour a day and video games were some that existed in one room of the house for one hour of the day and we all know the reality in 2020 video games have taken over the whole house and computer entertainment computer distractions computer communications computer productivity have taken over 24 hours a day and this has happened in large part to the cellular phone bringing the computer bringing the video bringing all these applications putting it in your pocket and putting it in front of your face i heard an antidote of a guy on youtube today he was talking about going to hooters so he was hooters and they're these you know half naked women these sexy women in these costumes nobody's looking at him he said like there were eight guys they're all drinking whiskey and staring at their phones they're doing and you know they could be doing something important on their phone so they're not they could be they could be negotiating with a divorce lawyer over the i don't know right like it could be they could be learning chinese on their phones i got a chinese learning app if you see me at the gym staring at my phone you know i promise i'm studying training i used to do that um okay come on buddy here get off the machine you don't get done doing chinese level three verbs here come on you know i'm not gonna say to you that you can't be hard-working 24 hours a day i'm not going to say to you you can't read books 21st you can't nobody needs to take a break you don't need to take a break from reading to play but you don't you don't you don't i'm not going to say to you have a balanced lifestyle don't be passionate be focused try to accomplish things reality is if i'm over in the corner reading a book and my girlfriend is over in the other corner reading another book we're together but in a sense each of us is alone i think there's a function for video games in our lives whether it's me with my daughter me with my girlfriend i think there's a function for short periods of time of bringing people together just to sit together and play where video games can be something not so different from playing a board game together i didn't live through monopoly leaving that one room in the house and that one hour and taking over our lives i didn't live through a generation where poker or pinocchio or ludo you know came out of the one room vest and took over it's not what i lived to right i was the generation i saw 8-bit go to 16-bit go to 32-bit and i saw it ruin everyone's lives around me okay i saw so many guys in the university you know they learned nothing the whole time the universe and video games it really was the main reason you know um that's what i've lived through that's what i've i've seen i can't tell you video games are a positive thing in the world or they're positive in your life they're not all right but i asked the question you know uh if you want to have some limited role for video games in your life in your family in your play time with your kid maybe we can't look to something new like the in television maybe we've got to look at something old what we can do with retro gaming what we can do with things like right now the revival of the neo-geo system