Non-RPG General News - Amiga 500 Mini Review

I have fond memories of the Amiga :)

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Seriously though, it's cute. There are many "remake" projects for old computers, or even evolutions like the MEGA65.

A word of caution though, this product is a software emulator, the actual CPU is an ARM Cortex A53, which means you may sometimes get noticeable lag. Even possibly a different lag between graphics and sound; IIRC Youtuber The 8-Bit Guy mentioned that for their C64 MINI product. However, he did a quick review of the Amiga 500 MINI and didn't notice the same problem.

There are other FPGA-based projects which reproduce the functionality at hardware level, but that's got to be more expensive.
 
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$140 for a plasic box with an emulator and some games? Eh...why?

I guess it might seem neat to people who don't know much about the emulator scene.
 
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It might be worth it just not to have to install such janky programs onto your beloved computer. Then again, the hassle of hooking it up to a monitor and all, who knows. Not likely something I'll be picking up unless the included games are simply incredible.
 
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It might be worth it just not to have to install such janky programs onto your beloved computer. Then again, the hassle of hooking it up to a monitor and all, who knows. Not likely something I'll be picking up unless the included games are simply incredible.

The games:

Alien Breed 3D
Alien Breed: Special Edition '92
Another World
Arcade Pool
ATR: All Terrain Racing
Battle Chess
Cadaver
California Games
Dragons Breath
F-16 Combat Pilot
Kick Off 2
Paradroid 90
Pinball Dreams
Project-X: Special Edition '93
Qwak
Simon the Sorcerer
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Stunt Car Racer
Super Cars II
The Chaos Engine
The Lost Patrol
The Sentinel
Titus the Fox
Worms: The Director's Cut
Zool

I loved the ones in bold.
 
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Thing is, you can download all those games in minutes without spending $140

I'd view it differently if that was actually a miniature Amiga, but it's just a replica with a fake keyboard glued on. I don't understand how they came up with that price tag.
 
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Thing is, you can download all those games in minutes without spending $140

I'd view it differently if that was actually a miniature Amiga, but it's just a replica with a fake keyboard glued on. I don't understand how they came up with that price tag.

mouse 25
joypad 25
Raspberry Pi 3 / ARM-Cortex-A53 40
HDMI cable 5
USB-C power cable 5
case 5
games 25

This could be the calculation
 
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Retro Recipes did some measurement and the lag is fine, they did improve a lot on their previous design. I'm impressed they can achieve all what the Amiga did with its specific chips, just by software.

The cost is not high at all for its components, especially right now. Is it worth it? That's really a personal preference. I'm not into Amiga stuff anymore, and I still have the real thing somewhere in the attic, but there are many people who love those products. :)
 
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The games:

Alien Breed 3D
Alien Breed: Special Edition '92
Another World
Arcade Pool
ATR: All Terrain Racing
Battle Chess
Cadaver
California Games
Dragons Breath
F-16 Combat Pilot
Kick Off 2
Paradroid 90
Pinball Dreams
Project-X: Special Edition '93
Qwak
Simon the Sorcerer
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Stunt Car Racer
Super Cars II
The Chaos Engine
The Lost Patrol
The Sentinel
Titus the Fox
Worms: The Director's Cut
Zool

I loved the ones in bold.
Thanks for the list. It looks like the Amiga games that I had the most fond memories playing are not included.
The Black Crypt
Faery Tale Adventure
Starglider 1 & 2
It Came From the Desert
Lemmings series
Phantasie series
Time Bandit
 
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Since I already have a good WinUAE setup and both an A500 and A4000 , and have played most of the included game i wouldn't buy it. But the game selection is good top marks for Alien Breed, Another World, Cadaver, Pinball Dreams, The Chaos Engine, Worms and Zool.
 
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@Xian; keep in my mind that you can add Amiga games in WHDLoad fomat via an USB stick.
 
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I also don't get why you would want to have separate hardware, especially if it is not native.

I''m using retroarch on Xbox now which works great. Kinda fun to see Lotus 2 stretched out to a 65 inch tv. Unfortunately no HDR support :)
 
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I gotta admit, that looks like a pretty cool toy/device for fans of old computers and gaming systems. A shame they didn't make the keyboard functional though.
 
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@Xian; keep in my mind that you can add Amiga games in WHDLoad fomat via an USB stick.

Yeah, but how do you play most amiga games without a keyboard? Do you also have to plug a USB keyboard into this thing?

The games they included are all ones that are played exclusively with an Amiga joystick/mouse.

edit2: it appears it does support a USB keyboard but since there are only 3 USB slots you would have to be selective i.e. only one controller.
 
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I also don't get why you would want to have separate hardware, especially if it is not native.

It's a self-contained product, it's a good solution if you don't want to bother with finding an emulator, a compatible mouse & joystick, or simply if you want to play without a PC.

And it's optimized, the lag I was mentioning before could be much worse on a PC emulator.
 
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Loved my Amiga500+ in early 90s. Shadow of the Beast series, Turrican, Black Crypt, Ishar, Mega-lo-mania, etc. So many great games. Great graphics for the time AND THAT SOUND. Very fond memories. Not tempted by mini version though, Im completely fine using WinUAE emulator.
 
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