Amiga 500 Mini - £119.99, due 2022

[Rex Grossman]

Can I make Babylon 5 with one of these?

[K]

Not only that, you can make SeaQuest DSV.

[Rex Grossman]

3 minutes ago, K said:

Not only that, you can make SeaQuest DSV.

But not the SNES spin-off game.

[K]

11 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

But not the SNES spin-off game.

 

With the latest generation of SNES emulators coming out of Albania and a £600 accelerator board, I can get a silky-smooth three-to-five FPS on the SeaQuest DSV spin-off game on my Amiga. The last remaining obstacle to Amigan domination of the home computer market has fallen.

[Rayn]

16 hours ago, Yoshimax said:

£120.

 

for an amiga.

 

in 2021.

 

🤣

 

The interest in the Amiga as both a home computer and a gaming platform has sky rocketed over the last few years. The A500/A600 was very popular in the UK, Scandinavia and a handful of other european countries back in the days but for anyone else it was just a weird, exotic system with next to no appeal, especially in the US. 

A lot of retro channels on Youtube have discovered the Amiga lately, which is one of the reasons it's so sought after these days. 

I do, however, agree that 120 quid seems a bit steep as you can basically build your own based on a Raspberry for half that price. 

[Rayn]

27 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

Can I make Babylon 5 with one of these?

Babylon 5 was created using several A2000 computers, each with 32 MB of RAM, all set up in a rendering farm. That was quite impressive for the time, but even with such a setup it could take up to a full hour to render a single frame so while you could use the A500 to do the same tasks in theory, a single frame with the Babylon 5 details would possibly take days to render. 

[LaveDisco]

2 hours ago, Dudley said:

Oh this is a new thread in normal games.

 

Ok

 

The creator harasses women online and is a long term ip troll despite being a copyright thief himself.

 

But since believe women only exists until you can pay over the odds for an emu box, do carry on.

ah fuck. ☹️
 

im clueless. Got a link? Might have to get one second hand down the line then. 

[Clipper]

16 minutes ago, LaveDisco said:

ah fuck. ☹️
 

im clueless. Got a link? Might have to get one second hand down the line then. 

A good piece on the whole tawdry debacle here by Mr Biffo/digitiser.

 

https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/horace-how-hungry-is-too-hungry

 

There was a thread at the time in retro folder. However the thread was closed due to a legal enquiry made to the mods so we may want to not rake over old coals too much.

 

EDIT - just to note I was posting at same time as Dudley, I was just reposting what I posted in retro thread

[Dudley]

The amount on the public internet is relatively marginal for obvious reasons (although I can tell you it really, really affected both).

 

https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/horace-how-hungry-is-too-hungry is probably the best basic summary without breaking confidences.

 

But suffice to say the universal reaction to anyone around at the time was much like...

 

 

Anyway I don't want to hijack this thread too, it's enough or it's not enough.  Personally I think they've stuffed up the product for a couple of reasons too so I'll restrict myself to talking about that.

[matt0]

54 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

Can I make Babylon 5 with one of these?

 

You might be able to make Last Stand on Hoth.

[Mr Majestyk]

Quite happy to avoid this one. I have the Amiga stuff emulated and outwith of the odd 10 min go for nostalgia, none of the games hold up particularly well. At least with retroarch you can map "up" to a button for platformers.

 

Amiga Forever is a better purchase for those who have a fairly decent PC and access to archive.org , and the pi / nvidia shield runs Amiga games well if you have the kickstarts.

 

[LaveDisco]

Ah bother.

 

Thanks for letting me know. Gutting

[Dudley]

Speaking purely as a product the controller is interesting to me because it sounds like the result of a bitter argument at a design meeting resulting in a compromise no-one liked.

 

Because the Amiga was a joystick machine, all their games are Amiga, they use 1 button (Before you start putting other controls like keyboard buttons mapped). 

But modern players all use pads.

 

So who are we selling this to? The standard vaguely retro modern gamer console crowd? Because what they're mostly going to see is their miniSNES or Mega Drive Mini but a bit shit.

 

The Amiga loyalists? Well they expect a joystick.

 

And I wonder if screwing up the C64Mini joystick has an effect here.  Ultimately though it feels like the pad group won but the Amiga group forced them to make it a recognisable one to Amiga owners and thus we get a repro of one of the least comfortable gaming controllers of all time.  And in reality I'd say more Amiga owners actually used mega drive pads than that thing anyway.

 

--

 

So the games included so far, if I were designing an Amiga Mini I'd need them to be 

 

a) Amiga iconic

b) Either exclusive to or at their best on the Amiga

c) As many as possible that needed a mouse (let's ignore the keyboard thing for now).

 

And what do we have.

 

Alien Breed 3D - An exclusive, albeit not one of the Amiga's strengths. Interestingly a game that did not work on an Amiga 500.

Another World - As famous on console as on Amiga.

ATR: All Terrain Racing - No-one liked this, better examples of the genre literally everywhere, including on Amiga.

Battle Chess - Yeah, a computer game. I know there was bugger all chess on mega drive for instance.  Probably a fair shout for one of 25.

Cadaver - Yeah, computer exclusive I think.

Kick Off 2 - Absolutely. I'm not a kick off fan but the Amiga is the only place to play the best one.

Pinball Dreams - To be fair the Amiga (or possibly CPC) is the best version here but Dreams rather than Fantasies is weird.  A very good call though given the console versions are pup.  Not sure how they'll map it to controller.

Simon the Sorcerer - Point n Click is a good call for this, especially HD installed.

Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe - Again the best version but released to death on console, including a re-release already in 2021 on both handheld and home console.

The Chaos Engine - See above

Worms: The Director’s Cut - See Above

 

So a mixed bag so far, it'll be genuinely interesting to see what their play is for the other half.  The obvious missing name as a "Licencing tart" is Codemasters but of course that runs straight into the "Not even the first console release this year" issue.

 

So with the exception of the inexplicable inclusion of ATR and surely there are better T17 games in the 2nd list, at least the basics of thought have happened here.

Zool

 

[AK Bell]

2 minutes ago, Dudley said:

 

ATR: All Terrain Racing - No-one liked this, better examples of the genre literally everywhere, including on Amiga.

Well I liked it. 

[K]

The faux-CD32 pad is presumably in there because it's the closest thing to an official pad, surely? There wasn't an official Commodore joystick; or at least, not one for the Amiga. It's not very ergonomic, but then neither is the Amiga-style mouse. I would assume the goal is to evoke the era, rather than to provide the best option by modern standards.

[Dudley]

Well that's what I think the argument ended with, "It's got to be a pad" "Well at least make it a recognisable one".

 

But I think it pretty much leaves everyone not happy.

[SozzlyJoe]

On the plus side, a D-pad maps reasonably well to a digital joystick, and some Amiga games did support more than one button (not sure if any of them in the list did?) but if the OS allows you to map buttons to keys that could be a lifesaver.

 

[K]

3 minutes ago, Dudley said:

Well that's what I think the argument ended with, "It's got to be a pad" "Well at least make it a recognisable one".

 

But I think it pretty much leaves everyone not happy.

 

Maybe. I'm not very keen on buying one given that the Horace Goes Skiing IP squatter guy is behind it, but personally, I'm at least a bit intrigued by the idea of using a CD32 pad given I heard so much about it at the time, but have never used one (or even seen one, come to think of it). I would be interested to give it a try.

 

If it's shit, I'd be surprised if you couldn't plug in a PS4 controller, or some other modern pad. I would expect most people would have one of those lying around.

[Clipper]

its a mini amiga, based on a computer that used joysticks same as the c64 and they released the c64 with a joystick.

 

To release it with a cd32 controller seems a little odd. I'm not sure why it had to be a pad just make a better version of the microswitched joystick they released the fullsize c64 with - I understand that was still not ideal. I think it had remappable extra buttons as well.

 

The whole thing is a curious mix of recognisable designs they can use because they aren't under patents/license alongside bits they don't have the rights for carefully removed/airbrushed out such as logos and certain keys etc.

[K]

I guess the question would be, what joystick do you release it with? Zipstick, Bug, Cruiser, Competition Pro, Quickshot 2, Quickshot Cobra, etc etc? They're all the classic Amiga joystick to someone. You'd need to license an actual Amiga-era stick to make it worthwhile, I would think - which would make it even more expensive.

[Clipper]

make the c64 microswitchable stick - which is a competition pro basically - but make it better. Everything I read said it was better but the feedback still wasn't 100% and it needed tightening up.

 

Instead they produce a cd32 joypad which almost everyone said was shit at the time.

 

As for using ps4 pad or other pads , on the c64 mini and maxi they were very hit and miss. PS4 controller on min64 you had to use analogue stick and fire was a trigger and didnt always work for instance.

 

Even if it werent for the problematic man in charge the Amiga would need way more polish than they applied to the C64

[Angles Morts]

I had an Amiga nicely set up on my pi. Multi button support has been added to a lot of the games via WHDLoad and makes a real difference to the playability of a lot of games as a TV console, not just replacing 'up to jump' but also secondary fire for smart bombs and the like. Getting things running without a requiring a mouse and keyboard took a while (then I broke it).

 

The dream would be 2-player Llamatron with the joypad buttons as fire direction. And biplanes with remapped controls.

[Dudley]

10 minutes ago, SozzlyJoe said:

On the plus side, a D-pad maps reasonably well to a digital joystick, and some Amiga games did support more than one button (not sure if any of them in the list did?) but if the OS allows you to map buttons to keys that could be a lifesaver.

 

 

I don't know which did but to even function with a keyboard then Pinball Dreams and several others will need that function.

 

Worms I *think* can be purely mouse but it'd be awkward.

[gone fishin]

I think this looks great and the pad not only evokes memories of the CD32.

 

 

Before anyone says "but the CD32 pad was shite", I'd say yes, it was shite. But the shite part was the "d-pad". (this was in the day when Nintendo still had the patent on the cross d-pad" Which was awful and made it impossible to get diagonal directions. Particularly crap when you had to press up to jump. However, the rest of it - including the buttons - was actually alright.

 

 

But that new pad at least fixes that crappy d pad problem. Plus it keeps the buttons scheme of the CD32 pad, with the supposed ability to play virtual HDD images, it could mean the ability to play CD32 conversions or at least games that have been modded to use the CD32 controller. There were a load of conversions released in the past few years making the most of the extra buttons, games like Turrican are now a lot more fun (no more up to jump or space bar). You can see the controls on the Turrican Anthology that received the CD32 conversion here:

 

As someone who's actually played with a CD32 controller regularly (the Competition Pro one, mind), once you've played a CD32 conversion like Turrican, you really don't want to go back to a single button joystick. Unless it's Sensible Soccer. 

[Dudley]

I wouldn't be surprised if some of their games are literally CD32 versions, we already know they're not restricting it to games that ran on an A500.

[Art Vandelay]

On 10/08/2021 at 13:30, Sixkiller said:

 

The Bug was my 'stick of choice, would love to see this make a return...

 

 

If you're struggling to source one my partner has a spare hidden under some pants in her bedside table. I've never even heard her mention an interest in Amiga gaming let alone see her play one so I'm sure it wouldn't be missed.

[SozzlyJoe]

5 minutes ago, Dudley said:

 

I don't know which did but to even function with a keyboard then Pinball Dreams and several others will need that function.

 

Worms I *think* can be purely mouse but it'd be awkward.

 

Yes, now I think about it more you are quite right. The need to map the buttons is absolutely essential for these games to work at all.

[K]

5 minutes ago, Dudley said:

 

I don't know which did but to even function with a keyboard then Pinball Dreams and several others will need that function.

 

Worms I *think* can be purely mouse but it'd be awkward.

 

Pinball Dreams would just need the shoulder buttons for the paddles, and the buttons for launching the ball and tilting the table.

[Dudley]

Yeah, it'd be simple to make work on the pad but the point is just that mapping keyboard buttons to pad is 100% essential to even play games so it'll have to be able to do it.

[stan]

7 hours ago, Giddas said:

“harasses women” 😄

 

I hope they are out of therapy now

who let twitter in here?