Code Like It's 198x

Tommy Tallarico

Game audio, television and concert stages

PeopleSource-checked

A game composer and studio founder who co-created Video Games Live with Jack Wall and presented games on television. His credits need to distinguish personal composition from his studio's sound work.

Tommy Tallarico is a game composer, audio-studio founder and television presenter. He also co-founded Video Games Live with composer Jack Wall in 2002, taking game music into orchestral concerts with synchronised video and audience participation.12

Music and studio credits

Tallarico’s work at Virgin reached beyond the games themselves. A 1994 advertisement promoted Virgin Games Greatest Hits, Volume One, an album under his name containing music from Global Gladiators, Cool Spot, The Terminator on Sega CD and RoboCop Versus The Terminator. A contemporary Digital Press review praised his guitar playing but criticised the album’s arrangements as repetitive and too dependent on their original game context.3

Composer Andrew Barnabas provides a useful account of how that music travelled between machines. In a later interview, he recalled receiving Tallarico’s Global Gladiators score by fax and arranging it for the Amiga. He likewise described his Cool Spot work as an arrangement of Tallarico’s compositions, with his own version of Wipe Out for the title sequence.4

Tallarico’s biography dates the formation of Tommy Tallarico Studios to 1994. A studio credit is not necessarily a personal composing credit: the European Mega Drive manual for Earthworm Jim 2 names the company for music and sound effects. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater credits Tommy Tallarico Studios and Joey Kuras for in-game sound effects, while separately listing its music. Counting every studio project as a score composed by Tallarico would erase those distinctions.56

Television and Video Games Live

The Electric Playground’s own history dates its television premiere to September 1997 and names Tallarico as host alongside Victor Lucas and Kelly Benson. Its Reviews on the Run segment became a separate programme in 2002, called Judgment Day on the US G4 network. The network records Scott Jones taking Tallarico’s place as permanent co-host in 2009.7

Video Games Live’s 2002 founding preceded its first concert at the Hollywood Bowl on 6 July 2005. Retro Gamer’s 2006 coverage credits both Tallarico and Wall, describes orchestral music played alongside game footage, and reports audience members playing games onstage with live accompaniment. The concert format combined a music performance with elements of a games event.12

The Amico project

Tallarico later headed Intellivision Entertainment’s Amico console project. In February 2022, after missed launch targets, Phil Adam replaced him as chief executive; Tallarico told GamesBeat that he would remain involved as president and a board member. Those are roles documented at that date, rather than a statement about the company’s present leadership.8

Atari’s May 2024 announcement then separated two businesses: it acquired the Intellivision brand and certain games, while the seller would rebrand and continue the Amico business. The transaction did not mean that Atari had acquired or released the Amico console.9

See also

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Video Games Live, official FAQ, founders, 2002 formation and 6 July 2005 debut. ↩ ↩2

  2. “Video Games Live”, Retro Gamer 30, 2006, p. 9, contemporary coverage of the concerts and proposed London appearance. ↩ ↩2

  3. Sega Visions, June/July 1994, Virgin Games Greatest Hits, Volume One advertisement; “Videogame Soundtracks—Made in the USA”, Digital Press 21, September 1994, p. 19. The advertisement establishes what was marketed, not the truth of its award slogans. ↩

  4. Andrew Barnabas, Lemon Amiga interview, answers on Global Gladiators and Cool Spot; participant recollection. ↩

  5. Tommy Tallarico, official biography, studio formation; Earthworm Jim 2, European Mega Drive manual, p. 18, studio-level audio credit. ↩

  6. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, PlayStation end credits, transcription of the Japanese release, “In-Game Sound FX” and separate music credits. ↩

  7. Electric Playground Network, official programme history, 1997, 2002 and 2009 timeline entries. ↩

  8. Dean Takahashi, “Intellivision appoints Phil Adam as CEO while Tommy Tallarico moves to president”, GamesBeat, 8 February 2022, including direct statements from Tallarico and Adam. ↩

  9. Atari, “Atari Acquires Intellivision Brand”, 23 May 2024, company announcement. ↩

Checked. Verified against primary sources and signed off by a person.