Here is a time that people under 30 probably do not know. That of the Nintendo/Sega pre-war video game. And while the fashion is for “mini” versions of our old salon glories, here is the opportunity to re-discover, or discover, a true legend. Will nostalgia or curiosity be enough? That’s what we’re going to see!
Above all, it will be fashionable to denote a real curiosity inherent in the mini console that interests us today: for a dark history of intellectual property, the object manufactured by RetroGames.biz does not bear the same name as its ancestor… No Amiga 500 here, you will have to call the precious “The A500 mini”!
Dislocated!
In the small box with garish colors and rather ugly of the A500 Mini, we will find the console and all its accessories. Already, concerning the mini-console object itself, we can say that it is quite beautiful and very well finished! The mini keys of the mini keyboard are strikingly realistic, although deceptively artificial. The colour, a delicious retro off-white, will inevitably bring back some memories and therefore has a certain original “sunfaded” aspect.
There is also a pad similar to that of the SNES and with rather questionable ergonomics, as well as a copy of the original mouse, but without the mechanical ball system of yesteryear. And even if it means having intellectual property concerns, rather than this pad that yours truly never used more than 25 years ago, why not include the much more iconic Konix Speed King in the bundle?
Not expensive enough, son.
In addition to all this, you also find an HDMI cable and a USB-C cable, still in this famous off-white, but beware, no mains charger is provided. A good thing for ecology, even if a socket with this same retro off-white could have seduced us… All these beautiful people connect to the machine via USB/HDMI ports, and there will remain a port available after having plugged everything in: To put your own keyboard (we didn’t have any more in off-white!) or a USB key, but that, we’ll talk about that a little later! Note all the same that the whole thing costs around the trifle of 130€ in most commercial resellers… We tick a little on this figure.
Once the mini machine is connected to your TV, you will be able to discover old legendary titles in 720p and 50hz, to remain as faithful as possible to the PAL display of the time. 60Hz are available if your TV only has this mode. You will also have access to classic image filters to age or smooth the latter. The emulation software works quite well, without anything to say, except for some sometimes long launch loading times when the games come from a USB key.
E-Mule
Because yes, if the machine immediately includes 25 games, and some are real legends (Worms, Kick Off 2, California Games, Another World, and other titles that yours truly discovered via this particular machine) the rest of the casting is not folichon. But fortunately, you will have the possibility of adding any game of the machine if you acquired the rom in a legal way (it is our ethics which pushes us to specify it, huh… The systems of VPC and exchanges of floppy disks between friends were already not very clear at the time…).
As a result, the joys of Shufflepuck Cafe, the Adventures of Moktar by our dear Lagaf’, or even these old erotic games such as this Teenage Queen whose design seems to come straight out of a Milo Manara comic book are yours! On the other hand, you will have to format your USB key in FAT32, an old Windows system which only accepts files of less than 4gb… Nevertheless, here is one more object, which will be able to gather dust with an unequaled class on your shelves!
