5,0 z 5 gwiazdek
Nostalgia Overload
Zrecenzowano w Wielkiej Brytanii 🇬🇧 w dniu 21 kwietnia 2022
I have always been a massive fan of the Amiga although I never actually owned one as I was more into consoles. My cousin did own an A1200 though, and I used to spend many hours on it and had a lot of fun. Many games - specifically the Bitmap Brothers games such as Speedball 2, Magic Pockets and, of course, The Chaos Engine, hold a special place in my heart. Sure, I did have the SNES version of Chaos Engine, and as close as it was to the Amiga version, it did lack a certain groove. I have an Evercade handheld and VS, and of course couldn't wait to get my hands on the Bitmap Brothers collection, hoping that we would see Amiga ports of Speedball 2 and Chaos Engine, but alas that wasn't to be.
As someone who has a lot of fondness for the Amiga but never owned one I was delighted when Retro Games announced the A500 mini - finally we would be able to play proper Amiga versions of classic games on our TV's in a mini form factor! I know, I know, we have had Amiga emulators for years on PC and Raspberry Pi, and technically the A500 mini is just another emulation box, but the difference being that the A500 mini offers officially licenced Amiga games, rather than ROMs of dubious legality.
Unfortunately, as with the C64 mini and maxi, it doesn't carry the Commodore or Amiga branding, but the software is licenced from CLoanTo, which means that the A500 mini is as close to an official Amiga product as were likely to get - and the bundled 25 games are all fully licenced.
Out of the box the A500 mini itself is stunning - there's so much detail. It's clear that the makers of this product have a lot of love for the Amiga. The mini is solid, with a little bit of weight behind it, and although the keyboard is non-functioning it looks like it could actually work (incidentally, the device does support USB keyboards), but of course it doesn't. The LED lights for power and disk drive are fully functioning and can even be set to mimic a real Amiga behaviour which is a nice touch (the red LED will turn itself off when playing a game, and come back on when going back to the home screen, and the green disk drive LED flashes to mimic loading a game when loading games from a USB stick). The cables (USB and HDMI) are the same beige colour as the A500 itself, which is also nice.
Also accompanying the mini is a replica of the original Amiga tank mouse. It's slightly smaller than the original and of course uses a laser rather than a ball, but it feels nice in the hand and is very responsive in the games I've use it on. If this isn't your preference it can also be swapped out for any USB mouse. Additionally there is the A500 gamepad - this is a slightly tweaked version of the CD32 gamepad. At first glance I was very sceptical of the gamepad. I know some people have stated that Amiga games are best controlled with a joystick and not a controller, but as a console person first and foremost, I had no problem with a gamepad being included. My only problem was the decision to imitate the CD32 pad, which was not the most comfortable controller to begin with. The controller itself feels really well built, the buttons have a good amount of travel and the shoulder buttons have a nice click when pressed. The only issue I had is with the D-pad, which, although responsive, made finding diagonals is games like Chaos Engine a bit of a challenge. However, the more I used it, the more I have come to like it. Sure, I would prefer the D-pad to be round, like the CD32 controller, but I can't fault its function overall, and it is also possible to plug in other controllers - some people have even got PS3 and PS4 controllers working, and I also believe controllers from 8Bitdo also work, although I haven't tried this myself. I did attempt to try my Evercade VS controller on the A500 mini but this wouldn't work at all unfortunately.
I'm not going to spend too much time focusing on the games, as these are very subjective and everyone has their own favourites - I will, however, say that although Amiga games were designed with a joystick in mind Retro Games have done a sterling job in translating these over to the gamepad, and most are as responsive as they have ever been!
One final thing to note before I wrap up, and probably one of the biggest draws for a lot of people, is the ability to add your own games on USB stick via WHDLoad and indeed to get you started, Retro Games even offer a free bonus game available to download from their website (an enhanced version of Citadel), along with the WHDLoad package, which will be required when adding your own games. This, I think, is fantastic, and sets the A500 mini apart from other mini consoles such as the SNES and Mega Drive. In practice I've found that it is simple to add games via WHDLoad and, provided you have downloaded the WHDLoad package from Retro Games, they are recognised and most play perfectly well. There may be some issues with games playing too fast, or sound problems, but when a USB stick is inserted it is possible to enable an extra set of "expert" settings so you an adjust the amount of RAM used, enable copper and blitter timings and enable CPU JIT (Just in Time), which can fix the majority of issues. It's not perfect, and not every game will run right away, but for the most part I have found that with a bit of tinkering it is possible to run the vast majority of games just fine, and it's even possible to map the gamepad buttons or use a joystick for each individual game. If you fancy a bit more tinkering, it's also possible to get Workbench and ADF games working via AmiBerry - check out Crazy Burger on YouTube if this is your thing.
I know this was a long winded review and now we're finally at the end. To summarise then; I am a fan of mini consoles, I own the NES, SNES, Mega Drive, PlayStation, C64 and Neo-Geo - I love them for their convenience, and the A500 mini is right up there. Its emulation is top class, and the versatility to add additional games, and peripherals such as USB hubs and keyboards makes it feel more like a fully fledged Amiga. Of course if, like me, you're just more interested in just playing Amiga games on your TV without the faff then this can also accommodate. The machine isn't perfect by any means. The gamepad takes some getting used to, there's no way to remap the controls of the built-in games, and the way WHDLoad is handled is a bit clunky and I know some people are disappointed with ADF not being supported out of the box. However, most of these can be fixed with a firmware update, and indeed Retro Games have already stated that they will be looking to add ADF support via a firmware update at some point, and maybe other features will be added. Given the support that Retro Games provided for the C64 mini and maxi machines I think that we will see the A500 mini's feature set grow as time goes on.
Is the A500 mini perfect? Not at all, but is it a lot of fun? Absolutely. For me it's the ideal way to enjoy all those Amiga classics I played back in the day and scratches that nostalgia itch. I highly recommend it for any fan of the Amiga, and retro gaming in general.
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