Controversies regarding Intellivision Amico

It's quite a long time since I last blogged about the TRDR Pocket which had its own share of gaming controversies. They even attracted other content creators like Yongyea & Angry Joe who could be last straws for Soulja Boy's gaming controversy history. I had worked on some 3D animation and computer graphic stuffs which were seriously time-consuming as well as worked on the Phosh Shell theme which can be applied to whichever Linux OS that uses that desktop environment.

In case of the Intellivision Amico saga, the controversy started with many problems including the main problem starring Tommy's horrible and disrespectful attitude towards gamers, critics and content creators. When the Amico was being criticized, he had the audacity to label gamers, critics and content creators various things. He even insulted the Nintendo Switch console on the online forum, AtariAge, by calling it some disturbing term I won't mention here. There happened to be a series of drama surrounding the Amico like he established a cult of Amico shills or something where they made positive and defensive opinions on the console that still has yet to be released. Criticizing the Amico console doesn't make us the "haters" or something. Indeed, I have both the positive and negative opinions about it but with the amount of drama and controversies that affected Intellivision's reputation, I probably have more negative opinions.

Here are the opinions in regards to the Amico:

1. Remakes: Some of the remakes define the term completely with sufficient potential although it's not quite the same for some other games like Finnegan Fox for instance, which has the background blurred out or something as if pixel art style is disallowed.
   
2. Questionable control schemes for some games: The Amico controller has four trigger buttons with two of them accessible depending on how you hold it, a disc for directional controls and a touch screen feature. Battle Tanks has a questionable control scheme in which you use the touch screen as a virtual analog stick or something and that makes the controller look like an unusual way to play twin-stick shooter games.
3. Lack of progress for games: The new trailer has some additions and edits but the rest is still the same. Not to mention that Flying Tigers on Amico has the worst explosions when the enemies are destroyed. They make the game look like some free hobbyist-indie game you could discover from Newgrounds or maybe Shoot The Core website.
   
4. A game box with RFID card and NFT coin: The presence of the NFT coins signals the start of the greed but things about the Amico are already fishy enough.
5. Game Development Rules: Some of the rules reminded me of the ones for Exa-Arcadia platform in which the Amico version must have something exclusive although there's no easy telling of the amount of exclusive differences/additions other games have on Amico and Exa-Arcadia.
6. Stolen assets used in some Amico games: As if Rangok Skies or some other mobile games didn't cause controversy enough for using stolen assets, some of the Amico games would, like Battle Tanks & Moon Patrol for instance with Battle Tanks looking more obvious. A stupid defense from Tommy, "Placeholder". It's kind of like saying that it's surprise mechanics when it's still clearly gambling with real money in video games in various ways.
7. Financial disadvantage for game developers

From the list of opinions above, things are not that good for Amico. And if that's not enough, Intellivision of today has recent financial trouble and even their crowd funding at Start Engine failed. Who would want to buy the Amico console, anyway? Also, the weirdos had a treacherous way to tell the others that they're not allowed to have opinions about the Amico until they've played some games like Shark Shark. Like what kind of idiot would tell you that? And what's the point of making a rant video before the product's release then? Do you even tell Angry Joe stupid shit like that before whatever game comes out? With a weirdo-style attitude you show towards such content creators like him, maybe it's best that they either ignore you or block you.

Another disrespectful problem from Intellivision was that they boldly called the popular game controllers from 8-Bit and 16-Bit eras complicated when the original Intellivision and Amico controllers ARE TRULY the OPPOSITE OF EASY. An NES controller looks simple for anyone to pick up and play and the same can go for the SNES, Genesis and PC-Engine controllers. Even the modern game controllers nowadays are having a common layout but not every game makes use of every portion of them. Even the arcade controllers from the 8-Bit and 16-Bit eras were labeled as complicated by Intellivision through their failed Start Engine crowd funding campaign.

Prior to the new Intellivision and Amico stuff, Tommy even had offended the fighting game fans back then as if he expected every fighting game to be played like Tekken/Virtua Fighter. His reviews on 2D fighting games back then were ignorant and I've figured that supporting those games at this time may be a key although the victory against the Amico console is already drawing near. Even if the victory reaches us for real, we're already off with something else as if the victory means nothing to us as many gamers are already interested in other game platforms instead of the Amico.

TRDR Pocket's release & Soulja Boy's recent stunt

Recently, there was a stunt in which Soulja Boy claimed to be a CEO of Atari when that wasn't the case. Some evidence included the fact that he invested in cryptocurrency stuff and the Atari of the present isn't the same as the Atari of the past in which the current Atari is involved in casino, hotel, cryptocurrency and even NFT stuff so the gaming part is like less interesting than before for us to take a look at. The only legacy about Atari of the present is the name and the other games tweeted about by them like Roller Coaster Tycoon series for instance had the past publishers. I don't know if he didn't mean to make a claim like that or not but then, there's another problem that angered people including us, the regards to one of the content creator's review of TRDR Pocket.

It seems that Rerez had ordered the TRDR Pocket recently online but for the sake of privacy, I won't link his tweet about it here. What I can do is anticipate his review but there's no way to know if his copy will arrive or not at first.

About the TRDR Pocket the female content creator reviewed, it seems like there are tons of flaws to begin with:

1. The inclusion of touchscreen isn't a good way over the design of the console as it may seem weird in some areas like using touch controls for gaming or typing on on-screen keyboard. At least, the Switch tablet design with touchscreen is as good as a real tablet device. Even the DS and 3DS have better design than the TRDR Pocket when it comes to on-screen keyboard that you can input with the stylus. So, the flaw is about design conflict.
   
2. The inclusion of 4G on a portable console like TRDR Pocket: Sure, it's Android based but obviously, game console emulators are what fit the console the most and if the mobile game doesn't have traditional controller support, you're out of luck. Having 4G/5G on portable game consoles like PS Vita is sort of stupid enough and it should be stupid on TRDR Pocket as well since it's shaped like a portable game console and mobile gamers are already better off with playing mobile games that require internet connection on their smartphone/tablet.
   
3. Vertical screen oriented games are problematic on this device that you're better off playing them on your smartphone/tablet. The Switch console is already a better bet when it comes to vertically-oriented games that you can turn the tablet to vertical mode and still attach the Joy-Cons or play it with other controllers. Sure, it's different than playing vertically-oriented games on mobile as not all vertically-oriented games on mobile support controllers. But in the case of TRDR Pocket, the touchscreen as a workaround is what feeds Soulja Boy some stupidity.
4. The lack of bumper/trigger buttons on TRDR Pocket makes you want to use the touchscreen feature as the workaround which seems stupid when it comes to games that make use of more than the 6 standard buttons the console has. The proper workaround will be to use two of the buttons as bumper/trigger buttons but what if there are games that use BOTH bumper and trigger buttons besides the four standard buttons? It's an obvious problem when it comes to playing such  games on PS1/PS2/GC/DC emulators. The same goes for other AAA-like games on mobile.
5. Price: It's an audacity to overcharge people additional money for an Android-based game console like TRDR Pocket. You could have bought the Switch, Switch Lite or Xbox Series S with $300+ instead of the mediocrity that is TRDR Pocket.
   

It's one big stupidity after another from Soulja Boy and even his defensive idiots continued to add more fuel of stupidity by defending him. I guess that he continues to do stupid shit like this to attract more negative attention ever since a few years ago so it looks like no lessons have been learnt whatsoever. As this time of writing, he had already changed his Twitter bio like he corrected his mistake but his reputation remains questionable to this day. Lastly, the TRDR Pocket console isn't that great to begin with and I won't be stupid enough to buy it after having seen that content creator's review.

Beatmania IIDX 29 Cast Hour Controversial Feature - Paid Loot Box Feature for Random Patterns

Indeed, I wrote the blog articles about the new features of Beatmania IIDX such as the Lightning Model and the controversial video-capture saving feature in Beatmania IIDX Bistrover which is present in Lightning Model cabinets only. The upcoming sequel comes with another minor controversy, a paid lootbox feature for Random patterns. It's controversial but not as controversial as the paid lootbox for character card feature in Sega's Ongeki.

At least, in Sega's Ongeki, you're going to need character cards or something as part of the gameplay in which you'll move the characters left and right and dodging projectiles coming at them in addition to the notes. It's basically a rhythm game with additional gameplay features but it comes with its own controversy I already mentioned such as a paid lootbox feature for character cards. Why the need for physical character cards for a rhythm game in the arcades?

At the current time, the upcoming sequel to Beatmania IIDX 28 already had a location test last week and it's theme this time is video livestreaming. Overall, that's like two minor controversial features present in Beatmania IIDX 29 when it comes out in the arcades sometime this year. So about the paid lootbox for Random patterns, it is exclusive to Lightning Model cabinets just like the Pay-To-Screen-Capture feature from Beatmania IIDX 28.

Windows 11 reveal event from June

About two months ago, the new successor to Windows 10 was revealed by Microsoft with new features although it has the UI taken from the cancelled Windows 10X. There were ups and downs for that event when I tuned in to it online on Twitter and I made a couple of tweets about it.

• Amazon App Store: Currently, there's the Your Phone app on Windows 10 which supports Samsung-branded Android devices for various features. The downside to this introduction is the usage of Amazon App Store as opposed to Google Play. Indeed, certain Amazon smart devices cannot be trusted over privacy issues and there's no knowing if even Amazon App Store can be trusted or not. Using Amazon App Store, you'll be able to install Android and use apps on Windows 11. The good news is that Android apps can be sideloaded.
  
• Xbox gaming integration: As part of the new Microsoft Store, the Xbox-related games will be in the list that you can play on Windows 11. The inconvenient thing from the event was the audacity to mention, "It just works". Sure, Fallout 76 was a disaster but recently, there happens to be new games coming in from ID Software.
• New Microsoft Teams experience
• Steam and Epic Games Store games on Microsoft Store: For now, the article from Softpedia may remain like an announcement-level as I don't know if Steam and EGS games will be part of the Microsoft Store or not.
• UI Changes: The entirely of the UI is based on Windows 10X's but with many changes. The taskbar buttons are moved to the center by default but you can configure position for them to retain the traditional positioning.
• System Requirements: Ever since the Windows Vista days, the system requirements looked harsh with 1GB of RAM and above for the sake of some of the cool looking features such as the Aero transparency for the UI and the new UI animations that are still here today. There's also the 3D window switching feature with Windows+Tab key but that was changed in Windows 8 onwards. Speaking of Windows 8, some CPU features are needed if you want to use it so CPUs without them are out of luck for that. In case of the upcoming Windows 11, its system requirements are a little bit harsher than before with the requirement of 4GB RAM, TPM 2.0 chip, a 64-Bit CPU, HD display, DirectX 12 support for video cards and 64GB of storage.
• OS Post-Install: The annoying thing for Home Edition users is that the internet connection is needed to complete the setup. I'm not sure if the workaround is there or not in case you want to use the local account.

Windows 11 will be coming out sometime in October.

Audacity telemetry backlash

What kind of fool would go to Github or similar to make a Pull Request on an open-source software like Audacity? Like what motivated him to come up with a foolish idea that would evolve into something shady? I've been using Audacity for basic adjustments and stuff, like adding Fade Out, re-exporting something in WAV format and making a mixtape by arranging portions of the tracks in order and making various adjustments. It's quite a free and open-source alternative to other tools with similar adjustments. At the time the controversy occurred recently, I looked up online to see if there's a forked version with offending features excluded and it seemed like there's one on Github but only its source code is available.

Some things about the telemetry features in Audacity that would get people angered was the usage of Google and Yandex-related metrical features for the sake of development improvement and other things. The other person who turned out to be the one working for Muse Group had made a new pull request with a new announcement, saying that they vowed to add error-reporting and software-update features and drop the telemetry bullshit after the backlash. The discussions there were mostly professional looking and it's right to be angry in a professional way over the backlash like this. Unfortunately, there's something uncool there as well in which someone defended that backlash by taking those angry people and ranters for losers. It might seem like he was trolling on them but they discussed about his immature behavior in a professional way. Some of the replies can tell that this is not the social media land.

Through the source code, the change-to-be was caught before the merge happened and Purism even had a news article about this. It even mentioned the fact that even with the privacy settings adjusted, you still can be tracked by some companies and that has been the famous example with some Google services and Windows 10 so it sounds like certain privacy settings are not real whatsoever. For a backlash like this for Audacity, once it happens, it will open doors to alternative-software-seeking like looking for a forked version that is more respectful than the original software. The last time the backlash happened at one of the Github repositories was over the Final Burn Alpha emulator which was forked by the same team excluding the offending developer into a new alternative that succeeded it.

MrGirl's questionable contents

As if MrGirl's positive review of that obscene Netflix movie, Cu***s, wasn't controversial enough, how about his own YouTube channel itself? Most of the contents will contain tons of inappropriate stuffs but the one that caught Tipster the attention was the music video MrGirl posted. I won't mention the video title but it surely sounded like MrGirl had gone quite deep sometime after having made and taken down that positive review video. That review video was made viral and stirred controversy at the time and he got called out and other stuffs for his actions. Man, what were his complaints about what happened to him at that time for when he made that music video that was easily as inappropriate as other contents he made?

Granted, about the videos of Top 10 worst movies of last year, not many of those videos had that movie in the list as if there were other movies much worse than that. There's another video from Tipster with regards to that movie although that involved a saga I won't mention things about in details but it took place sometime after the movie was released on Netflix.

Soulja Boy's response to criticism regarding TRDR Pocket

I can assure you that most of the videos about TRDR Pocket or other Soulja Boy game consoles are mostly negative due to his history of illegal game console manufacturing starting with pre-bundled games he doesn't have the rights and license for. As if the lesson and C&D given to him were nothing to him, he had the audacity to make positive comments on certain YouTubers' videos about the TRDR Pocket.

One thing that will piss you off like it did to me was that, from his response livestream about the fact that he got criticized for his actions, he mentioned that the earlier consoles like the Powkiddy A19 and the original Retroid Pocket were ripoffs of the TRDR Pocket when IN REALITY, ITS EXTERIOR SHELL LOOKED IDENTICAL to the one from the previous consoles. If the new specs are true, that makes a difference. HOWEVER, adding his history of manufacturing knockoff game consoles and the on-going skepticism of the TRDR Pocket as the two factors you should have, and you get something unbelievable and unconfirmed like the new specs for the TRDR Pocket and the inclusion of touchscreen. It's a shame that those things were mentioned in the Soulja Boy Edition of the console but not standard ones. Another trust-damaging thing he mentioned was that the TRDR Pocket console was made from scratch. That's what the Rangok Skies developers mentioned, like the assets being made from scratch and the game's credits seemed questionable with some sound effects stolen from other games in addition to the sound effects taken from freesound.org.

Again, there's no telling if the TRDR Pocket will actually arrive to the YouTubers' places or not but if it doesn't, it's basically a mistake repeated like there's no way to know if Soulja Boy will make amends for it or not. It's like he never learns the lesson after being given the C&D the last time. The way he responded to the criticism over the TRDR Pocket was like tantrum-throwing in my opinion but this blog post may as well qualify for an angry rant as the things he mentioned from that livestream are unspeakably eccentric. There will be no intentions to support his music if this keeps up with no time for mistake realization.