Amiga A500 Mini Review - The DF Retro Verdict - Reasonable Hardware, Lacklustre Games 

Sluurp.

I also recommend video *Echa Ekranu* 👍

@@Denis_1994 Great video!

I was a Megadrive kid back in the day. Really not trying to be 'that guy' or anything, but I never could see the appeal of the Amiga other than for those getting cheap pirated games from market stalls back in the 90's (which is made all the more strange as market stalls also done swap a game plus a fiver for Megadrive and SNES games also back then). Seemed that an awful lot of Amiga games didn't have any in game music either as it seemed to be either music OR sound FX but not both running at the same time. Hardly the hallmark of an impressive system. I never grew up with an Amiga but was aware of it. I also never grew up with the P.C Engine but was impressed with the recent PC Engine Coregrafx mini as it clearly redefined what I thought old school shmups were all about. As stated, I was a Megadrive kid growing up. The Megadrive also had The Chaos Engine and Speedball 2, so why would anyone bother with an Amiga? Considering what I've just said about the Amiga's only real USP in the 90's it's also Ironic that the type of kids that had an Amiga back then were also the type of kids that did well at maths and were probably going to grow up to become accountants, bookkeepers or estate agents etc but they seemingly couldn't care less about indulging in software piracy. 😂😂 Always nice to see a new retro gaming product on the market even though I'm probably going to sit this one out.

The successor to the C64 was the failed C128. It was still a large jump from either of those two systems. Hell, from a multimedia point of view it was ahead of pretty much anything on the market at that point, particularly from a price stand point.

@@gameguy73 yeah, I mean, as a games machine, the 128 was mostly used for 64 games. I think there might have been a small number of 128 exclusives, from memory? I don't think it was ever meant as a 'next gen' replacement; more a sort of upgraded 64 for business etc.

The advancement of graphics and sound from the C64 to the Amiga was indeed a huge leap forward. There was a night and day difference in quality.

Im so old i still rather play my amiga games than my series x :/

I'll never forget having an amstrad cpc464 for years, then seeing shadow of the beast running on an a500. Dat parallax scrolling tho.

😃👍

Well said MJR!

MJR!! 💪😃

I also recommend video *Echa Ekranu* 😃👍

Kim's doc on Ocean was one of my favourites.

Even though, it would be more authentic to apply those filters. Old graphics wasn't meant to be displayed in HD.☝🧐😏

Didn't know Audi was a GGmanlives fan

In answer to your question: yes, the rampant piracy affected both the quality of the games (little to no profit to be made from designing games to take advantage of the Amiga's hardware; cheaper to just port the Atari ST version) and also hastened the death of the Amiga as a viable platform. Developers abandoned ship to write games for the new consoles instead, which were far less susceptible to piracy.

@@Midwinter2 Thanks mate. I absolutely adored the system. One of the few games I had that wasn't pirated was Zool. The game required a physical circular card to decipher a code. Unfortunately, I lost the card and the game became unplayable. Ironic. I loved seeing my dad come back from work with new copies of games at the time and I'm sure I wasn't the only kid who just assumed that's how they were supposed to be shared. All changed now, definitely no longer normal. It would be interesting for DF to look at the impact of piracy, DRM and other early anti piracy measures, particularly due to the impact it had on some systems like the Amiga.

@@Sambrowski10 I hear you - and I'm not getting on my high horse. I had pirated copies too, though I'd say half my games were bought. I was 15 when the Amiga was released - and my father bought one about a year later (the original Amiga 1000). I adored my Amiga too. It was an amazing computer at the time - and in some respects, I find modern computers quite clunky to use by comparison.

Cannon fodder 😁 keep Jools and Jops alive 👍

👍

Better late than never.

I agree, and I feel bad for all the people who "unknowingly" will be plugging this into a TV without game mode.

Yeah, very lax for Digital Foundry of all places to omit an input latency test.

I agree it's one of DF's main purposes to test that kind of technical point. My personal experience with the A500 Mini: No significant input latency or audio latency to mention. It's probably a few frames - very much within expectations for software emulation. (This is contrary to some people's bad reports, so I was pleasantly surprised).

As great as they are I always wonder why DF overlook this.

@@rasmusolesen5307 what will happen if you don’t have a game mode?

It also helps that Team 17 is one of the few companies from the era that's still around today.

Don't understand why every company just doesn't licence their games to whoever wants to produce minis. Nintendo and Sega should be doing it as well since their mini consoles have been discontinued.

@@bigbabatunde1218 well Nintendo loves to limit the availability of their games so they can get away with charging higher than average prices on stuff that's decades old. On the other hand Sega is happy to sell collections like there's no tomorrow, you can find old Sega games in practically any platform. And they used to license their stuff to other companies to make little mini consoles back in the 2000's but after quite a few ended up being kinda crap they stopped doing so.

@@axelprino All it takes is for Sega to licence its games for an Evercade collection on a cart or two and Nintendo will be on the back foot. Rubbish games from Codemasters or other lesser known publishers is one thing but this needs to get to the next level with the big players to fully expand this retro market.

@@SuperFriendBFG Sensible Soccer, by Sensible Software, Acquired by Codemasters, Acquired by Electronic Arts and ah, well, who do you contact about anything?

Agree, absolute list of bangers. couple of duds but 90% of them would be on any Amiga setup I would have!

@@CCaribou Exactly, it's subjective. That means the list is good, not lacklustre. Some can like it more than others and vice versa. As I said in my comment, I have been an Amiga user, even at a professional level (when I switched to the A4000 to do my first serious jobs), for as long as this computer was relevant. I had pretty much all of them: A1000, A500, A500+, A1200, A4000 and A4000 T.

Where can I get the firmware? I it the WHDLoad file on their website? listed as 1.0.1 ? EDIT: Found it in the manual. No new firmware available on their website so far. So I am not sure what are you talking about.

Nice list. All great games. A couple of others I liked: Apidya, Desert Strike, Alien Breed, Speedball 2...

@@Midwinter2 Can we add Moonstone and The Chaos Engine to the list?

@@bigchinkid9052 We sure as hell can! Terrific games.

I bet you did. I bet you could watch some stand up comedy if you want to watch comedy.

@@johnboylan3832 so... You think tech videos should be absolutely devoid of humor or personality?

@@mrburns366 Yes.

@@johnboylan3832 Thankfully there are loads of other channels devoid of any humour out there for you to enjoy.

@@OriginalChrizum You going to make me leave?

We had an Amiga 1000 as well. An amazing machine - I've never experienced that magic with any other computer.

Ahh Moonstone, O Moonstone.. where art thou, i miss you so on that list of games included.

His jokes are hit and miss to be honest.

no it wasnt. slamtilt was developed by liquid dezign and released by 21st Century Entertainment

yep my bad. The same publisher

Yes, Stardust was terrific in all respects. Elfmania was visually superb - though the gameplay could have been better. Both games are examples of the amazing results that could be achieved when the Amiga's hardware was properly exploited.

Yeah, that gaming library is oof.

Personally I thought Turrican 2, was better than 3. Also, what about The Settlers, Dune II, Superfrog, Syndicate, Gods, Space Crusade, UFO: Enemy Unknown, Pirates!, Populous, Mega-Lo-Mania, James Pond 2, RodLand,, Ruff 'n' Tumble, The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Walker, Strider, Desert/Jungle Strike, It Came From The Desert, Waxworks, IK+, Moonstone, Ambermoon, BattleIsle/HistoryLine, PGA Golf, Super Skidmarks, Micro Machines, Disposable Hero, SlamTilt, Frontier: Elite 2, Theme Park, SimCity 2000, Dyna Blaster, Blood & Heimdall (I or II), along with a good old school Amiga dungeon crawler or two like Dungeon Master (1 or 2), Eye of the Beholder II, Ishar II, Hired Guns or Black Crypt. TBH, you could very easily make another list of 25 games (50 even), since there really was some great games on the Amiga.

Just stick them on yourself, I added 250 extra games on mine they very day it arrived from Amazon, and it’s been amazing playing them again 😁

It all comes down to legal issues like being able to license these games to be bundled with the device. Many of the companies do not even exist today or exist in a very different form. Reason why there is so many Team 17 games, is because they still exist and has been very nice since the get go when it comes to emulation and think they even released many of their disk files for free a long time ago. But yeah overall it is definitely not a good selection, but luckily not a problem since you can load anything you want nearly and I think you can even hook up a keyboard to the mini now.

I love his dry delivery of jokes

Unfortunately, his combination of hair styles, expressions, and even his voice keeps giving me Dreamcast Guy vibes.

Nice list, could be my picks... only one i don't know is Venus the Flytrap. I add to the list Myth, Traps and Treasures, Lionheart, Rockn Roll, Wizkid, Wings of War...

@@Teknikfrik Venus The Flytrap is completely underrated.

Agreed.

Yes, I loved my Amiga. When the Amiga was discontinued, I lost all interest in computers. Even with the high-powered computers that are around today, they are just necessary tools to me, no more. But the Amiga was something magical.

@@Midwinter2 absolutely this! I will not be buying this mini, I think it's crap. But I do have a serious itch for actual Amiga 1200.

@@LinuxRenaissance Well, the recent flurry of activity around the Amiga plus nostalgia really makes me want to play Amiga games in some form. I am clueless about emulation etc - so I'll probably get this mini thing, imperfect as it may be...

Defender of the crown was so good. Fired it up recently and got my ass handed to me… 😂

@@fensoxx I'm sure it wouldn't be good if released now, lol. The gameplay was pretty basic. But back then I was enthralled. The graphics were insane for the time. Some fond memories playing that game with my dad.

@@phrozac yeah I was coming off the a TI99/4a and when I saw that jousting scene in Defender of the Crown on my a500 I was hooked. Just the title screen with its fonts, high resolution (for the time), and music blew me away.