Astrosmash is out on Steam, Xbox, and Switch. This is not the first game announced as an Amico exclusive and subsequently released on other platforms because those platforms are real and someone wanted to recoup some of the development costs. It was preceded by Dynablaster and Shark! Shark!, neither of which really appealed to me, but I enjoy vertical shooters and I’ve even played the original Astrosmash on Evercade and thought that was pretty good. I really wanted to get a chance to experience a piece of Amico software and see the what it was like for myself.

Then I saw footage of what it’s actually like and that desire disappeared.

Astrosmash 2023 is not a finished game. It doesn’t even have a pause feature. It is rough around the edges, with shots that are fired from the center of your ship but travel slow enough that you can see the ship move in relation to them before they leave the gun barrel, and the asteroid explosion effect looking like a shower of packing peanuts. It lacks the previously announced endless survival mode that would have somewhat replicated the gameplay of the 1981 original.

Instead you get 10 levels of uninspired horizontal shooting with powerups and what appeared to be a cursory attempt at bosses, some pretty basic multiplayer (online may or may not work depending on different reports), and that’s it. I’ve compared Amico games to early XBLA titles and this game would fit in perfectly in like 2007, except that most XBLA titles had more content. Popcap’s Heavy Weapon, a very comparable game, has 19 levels with a unique boss at the end of each of them. Intellivision’s apparent belief that 10 is the perfect number of levels for any game seems out of touch with the expectations of modern gamers. Why not 4? 4 was enough for Donkey Kong. Who needs more than 4?

But of course it’s not that Intellivision and its designers thought that 10 was the right number of levels, they just didn’t bother budgeting enough money to make more. It’s not a matter of a tightly designed replayable experience, it’s just a matter of the minimum number they thought they could get away with, even if it results in a campaign focused game with a 45 minute long campaign.

I’ve been surprised by my reaction to Astrosmash. It’s not like I expected it to be good or anything, but the fact that it’s so bare bones and so unfinished makes it feel grimy and sleazy. It was one thing to follow the Amico as a hater when it felt like a very bad idea that people were trying their best to execute even though that best wasn’t very good, and there has been a clear element of scam around the project almost from the beginning, but the more these games come out and the clearer it is that no serious attempt was ever made. Astrosmash was one of the earliest games announced, they had years to work on it, it was supposed to be a core “pack in” game, BBG, the publisher, had time to polish it up, and they still released this. This.

Nothing was ever ready, nothing was going to be finished, and it doesn’t seem like anyone was working to put things together in a final, salable, condition. The marketing for pre-orders and investment constantly pushed the idea that the system was more or less ready and just needed some extra money to polish things up and, most importantly, pay for manufacturing, but it’s become clear that was never the case.

It is impossible to really talk about the Amico without talking about the gang of promoters and shills that hung around it, constantly fluffing the egos of the people who worked at Intellivision and attacking anyone who doubted the viability or future of this little console that couldn’t. I try to avoid taking pot shots at them because they are a group of mostly pathetic and relatively harmless oddballs who attached themselves to the project for various reasons ranging from wanting attention to personal vendettas to Tommy Tallarico’s mini cult of personality. If a 60 year old man wants to brand himself as “The Amico Kid” that’s very weird but it doesn’t hurt anybody.

But something that always bothered me was their insistent proclamations that they were waiting with bated breath for games like Shark! Shark! And Astrosmash. Why? There are dozens of games just like these already available on various platforms. In some cases like with Rigid Force Redux almost the exact same game was already out, yet they would claim to be excited about it, like someone saying they really really want a PlayStation 5 Pro to be announced so they can finally play God of War III.

As silly as they were and as weird as their statements seemed…they supported the system and a lot of them gave money. Substantial amounts of money. Sometimes thousands of dollars. And this is what they got in return (or didn’t get because they’d have to buy it separately) A slapped together, cheap looking, unfinished game.

The shills deserved better. At the very least they deserved Intellivision making at least one game that if not special would at least be satisfying. They deserved an endless survival mode and shots that seem to come out of the ship’s gun. They deserved some kind of effort and they didn’t get it.

And that just drains my enthusiasm for even trying this thing. Maybe if it gets to $3 or whatever eventually I’ll pick it up the same way you might pop a quarter in an arcade machine out of curiosity, but my Amico fascination has finally turned to disgust, and Astrosmash is what did it. The whole enterprise is just grimy and gross, and the people behind it didn’t care about the games. I probably cared more about the games and I never even looked into how to put in a pre-order.

I love weird little cul-de-sacs in video game history. I can watch endless videos about the 3DO and the 32X. The difference (besides the fact that those existed) is that those systems were about selling games and the people behind them tried. Amico was never really about the games, and the sad state of Astrosmash makes that very clear.

I really wonder if, thanks to the total lack of hardware or notable software, the Amico even gets remembered ten years from now. Obviously some of us will, but in any significant sense? It’s not going to have people who actually got the console and felt its reputation unearned. It won’t have physical collectors keeping it as an oddity in any tangible sense. Even the shills will have moved onto a new grift, which they favorably compare to the Amico if they bother mentioning the Amico at all. If anything, I could see that hbomberguy video end up being the definitive historical record, even though it’s just a chunk of the story.

As always, thank you for your service. I hope Astrosmash never goes on sale so you don’t feel obligated to buy and/or play the game.

@allthedinos: I don't know that the Amico is even known today. I guess the Hbomberguy video did get a lot of views so those people have some familiarity, but beyond that I don't know who is even aware of it. I mean it's a console that never came out. How many people remember the Madbox? The Phantom?

The Amico had an E3 presentation and Tommy Tallarico was known so it will be less obscure than those projects, but in a world where the Apple Pippin is barely a blip I can't think of Amico being anything but very obscure.

I appreciate your wanting BBG Entertainment to save me from my own worse impulses!

@allthedinos: The whole Amico story will be remembered as the moment Tommy Tallarico was exposed as a fraud his whole career.

I think I'd heard of it elsewhere before, but these forum threads are the only real reason I know about it.

@bigsocrates is the only reason I know the Amico exists and I'm very grateful for his continuing play by play on this incredible, family friendly device.