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When my son was born, I had grand plans for his gaming education. I wanted to share the experiences that meant so much to me as I was growing up. We'd start with something simple like Pong for the Atari 2600 and work through the best games of each generation.
Of course, it hasn't quite panned out like that. After all, there are only so many hours in the day. Also, (as responsible parents) my wife and I agreed J should only get a couple of gaming hours per week. Poor kid…
As time was short, I skipped straight to the NES Mini and SNES Mini. I thought he'd enjoy the Mario games. What I forgot though was just how unforgiving they are - especially for someone who's only recently picked up a gamepad. And Sega’s Sonic games didn't prove much easier!
I suppose this makes sense. In the '80s/early ‘90s many of the most popular titles were coin-op conversions - or at least shared a design ethos. It was a commercial decision to kill the player off as quickly as possible to extract more 10ps from them. Gamers had to have fighter pilot level reactions or at least plenty of pocket change.
These twitch gaming experiences don't appeal to my son and I can appreciate that. A few of my game controllers have come to a premature end at the digital hands of particularly frustrating end-of-level bosses... Well, technically my hands!
I may be a sucker for Ghosts and Goblins, but I still prefer it emulated on modern consoles with infinite saves. Games should be fun, not gruelling – and no I don’t play Dark Souls!
Not a Level Playing Field
We did make some progress with retro gaming though. The games my son has enjoyed most are the more forgiving Nintendo titles, particularly the Kirby ones. Even so, our retro gaming bonding sessions came to an abrupt end at the hand of my sister-in-law's partner.
He started telling J about his favourite game - Subnautica.
My repertoire of ageing consoles – and their micro reinventions - couldn't compete with an undersea world to explore. Especially one rendered so beautifully on the PS5.
I can't complain too much though. The Subnautica games are great and turned out to be surprisingly educational - for both of us. What amazed me was how fast an eight-year-old was able to pick up complex controls and gaming mechanics. I underestimated how easy it is for digital native kids to navigate games that seem hugely involved, even to me now.
But the slower, more considered pace of the games my son enjoys demands a very different set of skills to those I grew up with. Although I accept all those Elite fans might disagree!
We've since moved on to Jurassic World Evolution 2. J seems to have no problem setting up the electricity infrastructure for a theme park. At least he still needs me to drive the jeeps in a straight line, so I'm not entirely redundant!
Enter the A500 Mini
I’m pleased to say we've recently rediscovered a shared love of retro gaming thanks to the A500 Mini. What works well for us is the shift away from the arcade-style twitch gaming previous micro-consoles have focused on. By encompassing a wider range of game genres, it gives us titles that cover both of our preferences.
The relative accessibility of the 16-bit home computers, the Amiga and Atari ST, made them transitional systems. A step forward from the bedroom programmers of the previous generation to the larger multi-skilled teams we see today. This allowed for more ambitious games to emerge, but still with the quirkiness of the 8-bit era.
There was a breadth and originality of games on the home computers that went beyond the platformers and shooters of the console scene. So, one of my favourite things about the A500 Mini is it comes with a mouse as well as a gamepad. This allows you can try games across all sorts of genres, including the great point-and-click adventures that were so popular at the time.
This for me is what elevates the Mini above micro-consoles that have come before. It opens up a world of games that might otherwise have been lost to time. There's lots to appreciate, both for gamers who missed out at the time and for those who weren't yet born when the Amiga was released. And that would encompass both my son and I.
I lusted after the Commodore Amiga after seeing one running a rolling demo of Shadow of the Beast in the window of Dixons. I tried – a lot – to convince my parents to upgrade our Amstrad CPC464. It was used for printing prescription labels in my mum's Chemist shop by day but the dispensary became my home arcade by night. This was a slightly odd set-up but it worked for me!
For my son, retrogaming is wrapped up in Sega, Nintendo and their respective mascots. He has no awareness of the Commodore brand at all, which is a great shame. Game consoles didn’t really hit the mass market in this country until the Megadrive and SNES arrived on the scene when I was in my teens. Most of my formative gaming memories involve a joystick over a joypad.
So, I wasn't quite sure what J would make of the A500 Mini. But his response has been, for the most part, very positive. The Mini does make concessions to modern tastes with a joypad, but at least it's authentically beige! That said, we've had to get over the fact that to modern eyes some of the games do look a tad... shonky.
What About the Games?
The A500 Mini features a well-curated selection of games, including bonafide classics like The Chaos Engine, Alien Breed, Worms, Another World, Speedball 2 and Stunt Car Racer. It also brings in some lesser-known titles that I completely missed at the time.
Yes, I would concede there are some big games, such as Xenon 2 and Sensible Soccer, that are notable by their absence. Many of these are readily available on other platforms though. For instance, Evercade offers collections from Code Masters, Gremlin, The Oliver Twins and The Bitmap Brothers.
While 25 games may seem like a meagre (I'll get my coat) selection, it is pretty straightforward to add more titles. It seems the publisher, Retro Games Ltd, is committed to supporting this too. It has already made a fully licenced title, Citadel, free to download from its website. Hopefully, there will be more to follow.
The interface is slick and the design of the micro-console itself is lovely. So, speaking as a seasoned 40-something gamer, the A500 Mini is all I would have hoped for... A more interesting question is how would a (literal) next-generation gamer receive a system that is nearly forty years old itself?
A Different Perspective
The answer is, surprisingly well! My son’s key criticisms are directed at the gaming mores of the time - why is the game so hard? Why have I only got one life? Why does the computer always win? Why did that drunken (his words!) shoot me...? The last one I can't answer - thanks Titus the Fox!
While he’s not impressed by the graphics, J loves the music – especially for Team17’s ATR. He's also embraced the fun factor, and that’s what really matters. Special mentions here to Arcade Pool (again from Team17), Digital Illusion’s Pinball Dreams, and Kick Off 2 by Anco.
Other accolades go to Bitmap Brother’s Cadaver, a game I wanted to play back in 1990 and then completely forgot about. J is a big fan of the maggots in this game yet detests the leeches in Another World... There’s little consistency on the invertebrate front?! But it’s still a win for Cadaver.
His (unexpected) favourite is Adventure Soft’s point-and-click adventure Simon the Sorcerer. It's gentle – and very British – humour feels like it was written to appeal specifically to a primary school boy who has just discovered the word ‘git’. Actually, that isn’t a criticism in the slightest!
J never gets bored of instructing the titular Simon to eat his dog, to be honest, that does get old after a while… The schoolboy humour has been the gateway drug to Monty Python though - and that can only be a good thing!
The Mini’s graphics will always be a sticking point for those who missed out first-time round though. I have tried explaining that not all games back then had multi-million-pound budgets or huge teams of developers, artists and so-on back then. But my protests seem to be falling on deaf ears.
The game that’s a dealbreaker for my son from that perspective is the 2D puzzler QWAK. It was developed by a one-man band Jamie Woodhouse and picked up for a budget release by Team17 (once again). It’s a fun little game but we do have to accept that Jamie was never an artist. The weird floating fish things with disconcerting human faces in Qwak aren't quite as cute as probably intended. And yes, they are now haunting my nightmares.
Final Thoughts
I don’t think it would be fair to rate the A500 Mini with a mark out of 100. I suspect it caters to a quite specific audience of (probably forty/fifty-something) retrogamers, nostalgic for one of the great platforms of their youth. Given the original's computers are becoming increasingly difficult to find and maintain, the timing couldn't be better. It’s a lovely piece of kit and the option to add games via USB makes it excellent value – but remember the legal parameters kids!