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Pipercub

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Posts posted by Pipercub

  1. Posted

    I haven't "unshelved" mine in years but I can't imagine ever getting rid of it. At some point I will do like you did and dust off SB and give it another play through. That game is timeless because it is truly a simulator for something that just doesn't exist yet. But it checks all the proper boxes for a good sim and the graphics are as good as they need to be, if you look at top sims for military/airlines the graphics aren't at all cutting edge yet they are very effective in training. Being used to sims SB is sort of a natural for me.

     

    My hope is that some fan will build in unofficial support for the SB controller in a future PS5 Titanfall release or something similar.

  3. Posted

    I was an arcade/console/PC gamer from the beginning (late 70's) and always thought each avenue had its benefits. Sure one would inch ahead of the others from time to time, but despite ups and downs there was always something to enjoy. For me that was true until the cursed dual shock controller brought in the double thumb era for consoles. If your not a double thumb gamer you were pretty much locked out of the PS, PS2, PS3 Xbox, 360 etc. era with the Wii being a wonderful exception. I was that guy over in the corner with his gun in the air spinning in circles getting knifed by an 11 year old, the double thumb play mechanic wasn't intuitive to me and most games I tried I did not enjoy and I could not play well. So I didn't buy those consoles. I had also permanently transitioned to Linux and bid farewell to Windows by 2005 so no PC gaming either and I mostly stuck to my arcade and retro collection.

     

    Something was very wrong with the console gaming industry when a lifelong gamer who literally lives in an arcade was sitting it out.

     

    Then something happened around the time of the PS4 and XBOX One, they figured out that they had alienated allot of gamers and they made improvements, some overt and some subtle. I first played Battlefront II on the PS4 in a store in Germany while on vacation and realized I could actually play the thing and not want to throw the controller. I had one waiting on me when we got back. They had refined the controls and recognized some modes were just too hard for gamers that didn't find the twin analog sticks intuitive so more and more games had easy or story mode, which matches my ability. I started buying game after game and have about 60 games for it now with most of them completed and some several times over.

     

    I am having a great time with modern games now, Titan Fall 2, Fallout 4, Terminator Resistance, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Metro, and so many more. I am fine with long games and a ton of content because the only timeline I am on is my own.

    • Like 2

  6. Posted

    WOW, what a response and all goals hit! Much love and respect to UKMike for his amazing work in documenting this whole wild ride and congratulations on the successful book Kickstarter! You guys are in for an amazing experience reading this book, only the tip of the iceberg has been seen thus far and you will be shocked to see how much more there was to this story. As I said before I have had read the current version of the book several times and there is nothing about this book that isn't exactly as it happened. I hope that everyone can sit tight until their copy arrives and I am keen to hear what the readers have to say after they digest the whole history of this crazy story.  Combining my takeaways from UK's book, and my own reflections, I jotted down a few notes I will post here.

     

    -When you cross one line you know you shouldn't cross your going to repeat it.

     

    -In the words of my favorite professor, an honest man does not lie, a pragmatic man does not lie about something that is easily verified.

     

    -Brotherhood and fraternity are eternal, so is betraying brotherhood and fraternity.

     

    -Don't let your mouth write checks your ass can't cash.

     

    -Modern gaming media is worse than modern political media. The good old days were better and even an infotainment sales brochure publication like Nintendo Power had more quality control and integrity than the garbage of today. Minimal fact checking could have shut this down early, but no they regurgitated press releases.

     

    -Criminals are dumb, which makes them prime victims for another criminal.

     

    -Never be cruel to kind people. Some things are inevitable like the invention of the airplane, people all over the world were working on powered flight but the Wright brothers were the reason why it happened. The Chameleon debacle was going to be exposed by something, but the reason why was ultimately that Socal treated one of the nicest people I know (William Culver) like garbage and that is how the whole thing came to and end ***READ ALL ABOUT IT IN THE BOOK***

     

    And most of all, UK Mike has often said walk a mile in a man's shoes before acting, that way you will be a mile away and have his shoes. UK is a few thousand miles away so I am going to post a few short paragraphs from his book. He was kind enough to let me write a epilogue and included it in the book, here are a few lines that sum up some of my thoughts looking back on the whole thing.

    Quote

     

    What a wild ride, with a disjointed, sputtering, and lurching ending, but that is how it happened. There was no concise, neat and tidy ending with a single event to tie it all together and give closure. When UKMike first discussed this book, one of my concerns was that the ending was so chaotic and went through several zombie cockroach resurrections even after it had been declared dead. I was one of those that pronounced a time of death more than once, only to have the thing spring back to life, like an alien creature in a sci-fi movie that just won’t stay down, no matter how many rounds you put into it.

     

    However, after reading the first draft of this book, I was surprised in several ways by what UKMike had accomplished. Not so much that he had managed to do it, but how well he had managed to do it for a first-time author. The book was approached more as a scholarly work than a tell all book, with original interviews, documents, business filings and other primary source material, yet somehow, he had managed to make the chaos as organized as one can. Not bad for a first book. If one added citations, footnotes, and the other formatting requirements of a peer reviewed publication it could be a doctoral thesis on the subject, but then it would also read like one, and as UKMike mentions in his Foreword, he didn’t want to just write a factual documentation of events. This book represents the real story and the actual mechanisms that created and halted the whole wild ride. Any speculation or assumptions made to help connect the dots are clearly presented as such.

     

    During what we have generally decided to call the Coleco Chameleon debacle, one of the more frustrating things is that a network of people, made up of Retro Gaming Roundup members, former Mike Kennedy “empire” participants and alert observers, had first-hand knowledge of dishonesty and fraud being committed, and yet it was an unbelievable struggle to have their voices heard. I cannot tell you the frustration of obtaining and timing the release of a key piece of evidence that we had gathered, or passed on to others, so that it would have the best chance of being noticed and have the maximum effect in hopefully halting this scam, only to see it go relatively unnoticed! More than once we had a bombshell that should have stood the whole gaming community up like meerkats, yet when we revealed it through the podcast, social media or on forums, it was skipped over relatively unnoticed but would be followed by a Youtuber, pulling hundreds of thousands of views, that said nothing of any quality or accuracy. That happened more than a few times and occurred right up until the end. I have no doubt that SocalMike was hoping and praying that the voices of those in the know would be lost among the noise and drowned out by the broad reach of his unquestioned press releases that were circulated by the gaming media without any scrutiny

     

    .

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    3 hours ago, carlsson said:

    Why not go all the way and make a musical? Broadway premiere 2023.

    I told UKMike this, but did he listen?

     

    "All I  wanted was a prototype

    A prototype

    A prototype

    But I'm all alone without my prototype

    my prototype

    my prototype

    I'll just make my facsimile thereof

    For my prototype

    For my prototype

    I'll take this shell and this board once used to record

    I'll take this tape and this wall wort

    And at the toyfair no one will know I came up short

    For my prototype

    my prototype

    my prototype"

     

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    1 hour ago, Greg2600 said:

    I think I could do 150 pages max on this topic, I just don't know if there's enough compelling there.  However, I think this project would have worked far better as a documentary or mockumentary.

    If one hasn't read the hundreds of emails, texts, hours of phone calls, company documents, invoices, tax forms, state entity filings, invested a single dollar of their own money, been in the room as decisions were made, participated in the conference calls with the founders, ridden in the car as the magazine was formulated, slept in the spare bedroom as a guest and had the other person stay as a guest in your home etc. etc. etc. one might have 150 pages of speculation. UKMike's book is based on the gold standard of primary source information. Original documents and people directly involved. That is why it is as big as it is.

     

    Your onto something though with the documentary idea, if a filmmaker like Kevin Smith saw the RVGS CC events unfold and read the book it could make a killer documentary or docudrama and that is certainly what I hope that Uk might end up with. One of the things we were joking about was who would play who. My vote was Roan Atkinson for UKMike, WIll Sasso for Socal Mike, Mat Best to play me, Dave Bautista to play Mark, Andre Royo to play Steve Sawyer, Patton Oswalt to play Mr Lee,  and it went on.....

    • Like 2

  9. Posted · Edited by Pipercub

    12 minutes ago, Shawn said:

     

    Did you guys ever consider legal action? I'm guessing you where out a lot more than just friendship from what you have mentioned on this topic over the years.

     

    I would think getting the names VGS (even better RetroVGS if possible) and Chameleon would help with the kickstarter and awareness of what the book is about. I think it needs to be in the title somehow. Coleco can't be used by name but some of it's other handles could be maybe?

    Ah the perfect opportunity to say "READ ALL ABOUT IT IN THE BOOK!"

     

    Seriously, yes. I had litigation prepared had the kickstarter funded but it didn't so spending money to shut down nothing was pointless. Others will have to speak for themselves. UkMike covered this in his book.

    • Like 3

  10. Posted · Edited by Pipercub

    15 hours ago, TPR said:

    I gotta be honest here... I think a book telling the story about what happened is a very interesting idea and something I would enjoy... However I'm not sure I need a 600-page recap of that.  I can hardly get through 475 pages of this thread!  😂

     

    Consider this; throughout the months long escapade there were countless videos of people sitting in front of their cameras with their collection behind them as they pontificated on nothing. Posts in this very forum by those in the know of what was really going on were seemingly unread as the random speculation flooded page after page. And quite a few times those posts or interviews revealing the truth were followed by posts saying in essence "too long didn't read". What if there really was 600 pages worth of research, not fluff, that was left behind by this disaster? What if the Chameleon fakes were only the tip of the iceburg and UKMike has the whole iceburg, and its just as dirty as the tip? I have read this thing and having lived through it first hand as a defrauded investor, the original hardware designer, a magazine contributor, and a former close friend of Socal's I can assure you there is only one credible source of the whole back story and that is this book.

     

    http://www.colecochameleon.org/kickstarter

    • Like 5

  11. Posted

    On 5/20/2019 at 11:59 AM, Bill Loguidice said:

     

    It certainly could prove quite interesting. Arguably, the right person is writing the book, an insider, although I don't believe he was in on all the nitty gritty details after a point since Mike cut certain investors/friends out. I do hope he gets it vetted through legal counsel first, though, as I'd want to be extra careful of slander/libel.

    Hi Bill! I have read the book a few times over now and WOW are people in store for the whole story! The whole pageant of bogus press releases and rampant speculation that was what the public digested was very different from what was going on behind the scenes. You pretty much hit home on where the book sits now, the thing is written and a HUGE portion of it is based on the perpetrator's own words. What he forgot, or had the hubris to ignore, was the army of people he had crossed, and all of those people did a document dump of the communications that were intended to be internal to the RVGS/CC entity and "partners" It is pretty hard to talk about slander/libel when your printing the actual email/transcript/tweet etc. of the person in question. The sticky bit though that needs legal review is what you can and can't use, and in what context. There is a huge web of legalities, and once that is sorted through the goal is to come out with nothing redacted or removed. That is where the project is now, if only UKMike could just hit print and ship them today he would!

    • Like 9

  14. Posted

    The new Indian is an actual manufacturer of motorcycles though.

     

    I'd love to see an Atari revival from a group of talented engineers and programmers, but that's a tall order in 2018's crowded market, and the current group of shysters certainly doesn't fit the bill.

     

    Somewhat exactly my point. Just like Sony and Microsoft decided to get into the console game in the 90's, what if Samsung, Sun, HP, etc. decided to buy Atari and deliver a quality competitive project on the shelf with no renders, crowdfunding, and other amateur hour stunts.

  15. Posted

     

    I hate that this company is trading on the old name and feelings of nostalgia. It's not a scam in the legal sense, but anyone who buys into this thinking it has ANYthing to do with old Atari other than the name is getting scammed, fooling themselves, head up arse, and so on.

     

     

    Companies can be brought back by new owners with great success after time passes and circumstances change. In 1901 Indian motorcycles were being produced, Harley Davidson came along shortly after and their rivalry was strong until Indian went under in 1953, they just didn't survive the post WWII slump before the boom hit. About a half dozen times the name was bought and the brand revived by people who had nothing to do with the original brand, each attempt ended in a failure.

     

    In 2011 Polaris which makes a wide range of powersports vehicles bought the Indian name and released a line of bikes that were true to the original style and the design and build quality is a decade or more ahead of Harley. An Indian today answered the question, what would Indian bikes be like today if the brand had never gone away? They are selling well and so far it looks like the Indian brand is back, by people that had nothing to do with the 1901 brand. I have had an Indian Darkhorse now for about a year and 14,000 miles of trouble free riding. That was my original hope for the Ataribox, what if they did it right and created a console that answered the question what would a new Atari console be like today if Atari never went away.

     

    Point being, Atari **COULD** be brought back and be awesome but it might take a major player to do so.

    post-4118-0-18987800-1524592557_thumb.jpg

    • Like 10

  16. Posted

    This weekend I took a trip out to where they parked the old Chameleon bus, I had a look underneath and didn't see any Ataribox team members, so there is that. Of all the goofs and gaffs so far in the Ataribox adventure the one that stands out the most to me is the name change, calling it the VCS (at least it wasn't the VGS) was a pretty silly move. Those who remember the VCS name, not just the Atari name but VCS, won't think highly of them calling the Ataribox the VCS and those that won't be annoyed by that won't be inspired to buy it because it has VCS in the name. It is a really bizarre naming choice because they think it is a big plus when it was a total negative.

     

    At this point even if they get a product released somehow, I will just be waiting for a broken one to turn up so I can use the case.

    • Like 8

  21. Posted

     

     

    Mike stuck around as long as he had some trinkets of the Retro empire at his disposal. We were never rid of him while he could still trot out his magazine, or his storefront, or his auction house. When those were sold off, Mike's relevance (such as it was) went with it. I know he was supposedly a great guy BITD, but anything we've seen of him in the past few years has been a guy who only cares about the parts of the hobby he can monetize.

     

    I really liked the comedy stylings of Bill Cosby, but I'd be lying if I said I could watch them and enjoy it just as much.

     

     

     

    I'd sooner trust a grinning Bill Cosby offering me a drink than a Kennedy with a business pitch.

    • Like 9

  22. Posted

     

    That's highly likely, if you ask me. Look at the people he was recruiting for his project. By the time he took the RVGS project to the public there was Woita, Clarkson and Kevtris. In all the podcast interviews he couldn't help but name drop anyone and everyone with credentials that even breathed on him. All of these people had at least some amount of skill to their name. So why did he shift gears from grandstanding to then hiding a mysterious "Mr. Lee" from the public? You cannot look at this and not see that Mike's approach to his project changed drastically by that point.

     

    He knew damn well about Robinson's shady ass past, but those are the credentials he was looking for now that he was going full-on deception. He needed someone to make a convincing fake prototype to fool the gatekeepers at Kickstarter and he knew he could trust Robinson because anyone else on the team with a reputation to defend wouldn't go along with it. I don't think Mike brought in Sean for the purpose of being his fall guy, Mike's not the type that prepares for the worst, but Sean's spotty history became awfully convenient after Mike's lies came crashing down.

     

    It was Sean's request that he be "behind the scenes" and not publicly a part of it. He didn't say why and I didn't ask, maybe he didn't want to end up like the others being thrown under the bus. I recall that when MK was crowing about being "in talks" with Konami and such that he tagged Sean in an email and brought him up as part of the team and he didn't care for that. At some point Sean had done quite a bit of computer/web work for MK that he had not been paid for and perhaps he went along with the Chameleon thing as a best chance of being paid?

  23. Posted

    Nothing posted there is inconsistent with what was found during the research done for the CC book. Sean was offered the chance to speak in his own words both on the show and for the book and he declined the offer.

     

    Also, nothing discovered about Sean changes my conclusion I made after the Toy Fair fake prototype, and in fact these discoveries contribute to that conclusion. We know that MK asked several people to create, and spoke about, a smoke and mirrors mock-up and all refused. My opinion is that he asked Sean for a mock-up which Sean was willing to do, and when it had blowback after he proclaimed the mock-up to be a fully functional prototype he threw Sean under the bus. And with Sean's past it seemed a plausible story that Sean scammed him, only to believe that you would have to believe MK, a lifetime collector, couldn't ID a SNES in a Jag or the SD2SNES multicart the show reviewed.

    • Like 8
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