Presented in 1987, the Amiga 500 immediately represented an important step forward in the world of personal computers and, consequently, also in that of video games. In fact, this son of the Amiga 1000 immediately proved to be an excellent machine to play and, despite a fluctuating success due to nefarious commercial choices, a place of innovation and playful experimentation that gave rise to many classics.
To celebrate the fun it has given to at least two generations and to still play the most beautiful titles today, The A500 mini has just come out, a smaller version of the same ones who created the C64mini. In fact we are talking about an Arm H6 processor with 512GB of Ram enclosed in a body made in the shape of an Amiga 500, obviously without a working keyboard. On the outside we find three USB ports to connect the mouse, obviously inspired by the design of the original and without a wheel, a gamepad reminiscent of the Amiga CD32 and a keyboard and HDMI socket.
Preloaded inside TheA500 mini are 25 games including Another World, Speedball II, The Chaos Engine, Simon the Sorcerer, Zool, Worms and Alien Breed. Unfortunately, the list also includes less memorable products and as you can imagine there are gaps but when it comes to licenses and old games there are always embarrassing gaps that, as we will see, fortunately can be filled.
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Each game can be saved at any time to continue the game later and, if desired, it is also possible to activate a series of graphic filters to simulate the scan lines of a cathode ray tube, more or less like in any other console of this type. It must be said that the effect in this case seems to dirty the image a little too much compared to what can be obtained on the Sega Megadrive or the Super Nintendo Mini. As for the controller, the attached gamepad performs well, much better than what happened with the TheC64mini, which at the time was plagued by an almost unusable joystick.
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The mouse is also good, which if it were not for the absence of the wheel could easily be used every day to give a retro touch to your desk. To see how it behaves with other controllers we tried using a couple of arcade sticks and the Xbox controller but in all cases we had problems with the key assignments and once the arcade stick was not even recognized. . Hopefully this potentially serious flaw can be fixed in later firmware.
We talked before about the included games and some pearls that stand out in the list, but it is clear that real milestones such as Sensible World of Soccer, Moonstone, Syndicate, Secret of Monkey Island, Cannon Fodder or even the dated, but beautiful to see, are missing. , Defender of the Crown, which at the time represented the game with which to show the capabilities of the Amiga 500 to the world. Fortunately, a USB stick is enough to solve this problem. TheA500 mini is in fact compatible with the WHDLoad standard, which is not simply a standard of old Roms but an archived image of the game that contains all the data to make it run at its best, even when the game was divided into multiple discs. In fact, it is enough to find the games on the sites dedicated to retrogaming, put me in a folder on the stick after following the instructions in the manual and you can play them almost without problems. The “almost” is due to the fact that in some cases finding the working version can be more complex but practically all the games we tested worked smoothly.
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At the end of the games we are faced with the usual dilemma with devices of this type. The A500mini is a good “turnkey” solution, or almost, to stroll along the boulevard of memories and pick up games that still have something to say, both from an artistic and a playful point of view. Given how complex it can sometimes be to emulate the Amiga if you don’t have some minimal knowledge of what it takes to do it, there is also the plus that it makes everything very simple from the beginning. But, of course, if you already have a nice ROM archive in the mame, if you use FPGA solutions, if you prefer a real Amiga connected to the cathode ray tube, all this for you will be superfluous and even expensive, because in any case we are talking about almost 130 euros and at that point the price of hearing the beautiful Chaos Engine soundtrack again or the sound of a fight in Speedball 2 you know.