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theC64 Mini announced in glorious 16 colors
- Thread starter Castef
- Start date
I need an Amiga mini with all the Factor 5/ Rainbow Arts classics and more in my life.
Imagine an Amiga mini with
Turrican
Turrican 2
Katakis
Z-Out
X-Out
Great Giana Sisters
R-Type
Rick Dangerous
Lemmings
Defenders of the Crown
Hybris
Battle Squadron
The Faery Tale Adventure
Dungeon Master
Etc.
Imagine an Amiga mini with
Turrican
Turrican 2
Katakis
Z-Out
X-Out
Great Giana Sisters
R-Type
Rick Dangerous
Lemmings
Defenders of the Crown
Hybris
Battle Squadron
The Faery Tale Adventure
Dungeon Master
Etc.
wait...what!? I was initially interested...
CarlisleDavid1979
Member
Will buy. Hopefully an Amiga mini soon as well.
I bought an Armiga a while ago, and Factor 5 offer their games for download.
http://www.armigaproject.com/
http://www.factor5.de/downloads.shtml
http://www.factor5.de/downloads_backups.shtml
Princess Viola
Member
Imagine if you accessed the games through Workbench and could use a USB stick as a hard drive addon. I might actually be willing to pay alot of money for that.
eso76
Member
I've just seen the trailer for the soon to be released C64 homebrew game Sam's Journey.
Holy shit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp-_18hT6tQ
Holy shit!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp-_18hT6tQ
Stiflers Mom
Banned
In Germany, there will be a full fledged FPGA C64 produced with the label "Commodore" put on by Individual Computers.
They are already selling new old cases...
https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/33/items/commodore-back-in-germany.html
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the NES Classic Mini the first one to be a reduced scale replica of the original though? Those other systems were either a new design, or full size weren't they? (Some were even just the controllers with no 'console' at all)
I believe so although Atari Flashback 2 was quite close.
However the biggest addition of the NES Classic to the Plug & Play retro consoles was how many third-party licensed games were there (almost half of the total lineup) cause usually there is a low to none third-party games due to the cost associated to get the licenses from several different companies.
For example the Mega Drive Plug & Play retro consoles usually have only Sega games with (much) later version having a couple big third-party games like Street Fighter 2 or Mortal Kombat.
Hope the other half of the game lineup is better than what they're showing now. California Games and the Impossible Missions are the only titles of interest there. Gonna at least need Space Taxi, Blue Max, Forbidden Forest, and Mail Order Monsters to take the plunge here.
Steve McQueen
Member
Uridium in that trailer: sold!
Boy Wander
Member
Pretty shit line up of games makes this a no buy for me. Where the hell is Last Ninja?
ranmafan
Member
This would've been an very interesting thing for me to consider getting since the c64 was such an important machine for me when I was a child. However looking at the supposed full game list on some sites, I see that for some strange reason Summer Games 2 is listed but not 1. Now Summer Games 1 and 2 are like in my top 10 games of all time list and of course are both C64 classics. You have to have both of those games on any c64 collection or device like this and they have to be able to connect with each other like they did originally. Without one or the other just makes the games half done. While its nice to see many of my other favorite Epyx games on the list, the lack of summer games 1 makes it a pass for me. That and many of the best games for the system are missing and most of the list I don't even recognize. Shame really, Would love a great c64 mini like system.
GifGafIsTheBestGaf
Member
I saw a real Commodore 64 at a garage sale once for $60 and kind of regret not getting it.
That fake mini keyboard is such a joke though, lol.
That fake mini keyboard is such a joke though, lol.
Everyone should copy the Flashback/Classic series idea, because it's a great idea in many cases. I'll put down $80 right now for a 'PS1 Classic'. Or a Genesis classic that isn't terrible.
Make one for Amiga, looking like Amiga 600 (with functional KB) and you've got a sale.
Such beauty.
Would be cool with a A4000 in a A600 form factor
Could be big in Europe
If you want a functional keyboard, wait for the full size model. If the keyboard on the Mini was functional, it would surely be uncomfortable as hell for being so tiny.
No Wasteland, Bard's Tale, Autoduel, Last Ninja, and none of the great Microprose military sims. And a non functioning keyboard?? I'd love to take a nostalgia trip back to the C64, but they need to do better than this. Maybe the full C64 will be better.
clem84
Gold Member
I saw that joystick close to 30 years ago, and never again since then. Huge wave of nostalgia when I saw that box. I think I'm getting this.
Edit: I feel like a broken record saying this but I hope it will have the ability to have carts and that the company will sell packs of games on carts separately. Everyone has their personal favorites so this way, there would be a way for everyone to get the games they want.
Edit: I feel like a broken record saying this but I hope it will have the ability to have carts and that the company will sell packs of games on carts separately. Everyone has their personal favorites so this way, there would be a way for everyone to get the games they want.
Agent X
Member
I agree, somewhat. I really adored the C64DTV (the self-contained C64 in a joystick with 30 games) that was released in 2004, and still play with it occasionally. If this is based on the C64DTV hardware, then it stands a chance at being a solid product.
That being said, this machine seems to be somewhat underwhelming in 2017. It's cool that they allow you to use two joysticks, and the video output is HDMI. On the downside, there doesn't appear to be any way for users to load other C64 software onto this machine. Maybe it can be accomplished with a USB flash drive, but they haven't said anything about this yet....which leads me to think that it's not going to happen. It's also too bad that the keyboard appears to be purely decorative, and is non-functional. Maybe the "full-size" version will allow you to use other C64 peripherals and software.
The library of 64 built-in games is a hit-or-miss selection. They've got a lot of the same games that appeared on the C64DTV (and most of those games were pretty good), but the remainder of the selection is mostly--as you put it--"fluff". I get the notion that they were intent on including sixty-four games, but after they got around 35-40 games they seem to have stopped caring, and just went for whatever they could license cheaply and easily. Honestly, I would prefer that they just took the top 40 games and stopped there, and then allowed you to load your own games through USB.
I also notice that the game selection is extremely heavy on the European games. Aside from Epyx, there's almost no representation from the western hemisphere. Don't get me wrong, I thought Epyx was a great company, and there were surely some top-notch games out of Europe (many of which are in this package), but there are significant holes in the library that could have been filled by other high-profile American games. As it stands now, most of the European games (even the great ones) are virtually unknown on "this side of the pond". This game selection would not appeal to most Americans seeing the product on a store shelf.
I'd like to have some games from publishers like Activision and Electronic Arts. I realize those two companies are now titans in this industry, and licensing probably would have cost a small fortune...but if they couldn't handle the licensing, then that's all the more reason why loading external games would have been an extremely valuable feature.
Another major player is Atari. They published several good games for the C64 (mostly arcade conversions), but they also have a much larger catalog that they've acquired through various mergers and acquisitions over the years. Atari's catalog might also encompass games from MicroProse, Spectrum HoloByte, Accolade, Ocean, Infogrames, and probably others that I've forgotten. (Atari might have divested some of those properties in recent years--for instance, they no longer own the Accolade brand name.)
Even Commodore itself had put out some worthwhile games. They've had some good Midway arcade conversions, as well as several original games. The fact that there are absolutely zero Commodore brand games makes me question whether this is "officially licensed". The official Web site has cleverly skirted around using the "Commodore" name when referencing the "classic computer", so my guess is that this does not have the blessing of whoever the heck currently owns the rights to the Commodore brand. (For what it's worth, the old C64DTV from 2004 was officially licensed, and was able to use the "Commodore" name.)
All in all, I have very mixed feelings about this product. I don't follow the Sinclair computers all that closely (since I was a C64 guy, and Sinclair had very little impact here in the US in the day), but from what I've seen of the recent Spectrum revivals is significantly more appealing. I'd love to see that level of effort in a Commodore retro computer. If they couldn't have done that, then they should have either aimed for a cheaper price by sacrificing 20 or so of the "fluff" titles, or they should confirm that there is in fact an easy way (i.e. no "hardware hacks" necessary) to load your own C64 software on this machine through USB.
Now thats a mini I give a shit about. Id be even more keen on a Amiga mini. All my gaming nostalgia is Commodore it seems.
The game list certainly has some Id put on there if making a dream list.
Shame that theres no adventure games, no mule, no lords of Midnight, no sentinel, no ssi games.
Wish it had a 9 pin d socket so I could plug in my old wico controllers.
The game list certainly has some Id put on there if making a dream list.
Shame that theres no adventure games, no mule, no lords of Midnight, no sentinel, no ssi games.
Wish it had a 9 pin d socket so I could plug in my old wico controllers.
farmerboy
Member
Yes, in a heartbeat.
Agent X
Member
The C64DTV was the same way--it had Summer Games II, but not the first one.
I don't understand why the original Summer Games is frequently omitted whenever they license out these Epyx games. The only thing I can think of is that some of those events demanded a lot of intense joystick wiggling. I still think they should have included it, to make the collection more "complete" They'd still be missing some of the later games in the series, but at least they'd have the entirety of the first five.
I also just noticed that Jumpman and Jumpman Junior are missing from this package. Huge omission, as those are two of Epyx's biggest C64 games. (The C64DTV had Jumpman Junior, but not the original.)
Randy Glover (the creator of these games) acquired the full rights to the Jumpman series when Epyx went bust, so they'd have to negotiate with him directly, and not whoever the heck currently owns the right to the Epyx catalog. I can't imagine he'd be terribly demanding, considering he gave his blessing to some modernized indie Jumpman games a while back.
ranmafan
Member
That would be interesting if the joystick wiggling aspect of the first game was the reason it was omitted. Would be a shame if it was that reason. It certainly deserves to be on there. When combined with the second game, you have what I still feel is the finest olympic video game ever made. EPYX really got it right with those two games. And yeah it would be nice to have the great first five games complete again in a collection like this. Although if they ever did have a collection with the 1988 "The Games" versions as well, that would be a nice treat. But yeah just a real shame we can get the complete package of the best olympic game ever.
Also even though they aren't EPYX games, there are just so many other C64 Classics I would love to see in a collection one day. Like the Windham Classics games like Below the Root. Or how about the "Hacker" games (probably impossible due to licenses).
The lack of anything from System 3 or Ocean/Imagine really hurts this list. This is also important from the point of view of sound - no Martin Galway or Matt Gray! Ouch.
Still the stuff they have here is mostly great. Cosmic Causeway and Nebulus are other highlights outside the obvious ones.
Still the stuff they have here is mostly great. Cosmic Causeway and Nebulus are other highlights outside the obvious ones.
I want one because all my neighbours had a C64 back in the day and we never got one because we had a TI-99/4A.
The joystick is USB, so you can surely just buy an extension cable for it.
I only see 40 games on their site though. Is the full list of all 64 games somewhere, or the other 24 are just garbage no one would care about anyway?
The joystick is USB, so you can surely just buy an extension cable for it.
I only see 40 games on their site though. Is the full list of all 64 games somewhere, or the other 24 are just garbage no one would care about anyway?
Fright Zone
Member
Make one for Amiga, looking like Amiga 600 (with functional KB) and you've got a sale.
Such beauty.
Yes. No interest in the C64 but would buy a mini A600 depending on the games.
NeoZeedeater
Member
I love the box but the game selection on this thing is weak. And it probably runs everything at PAL speed.
I'm often disappointed to see North America get ignored in modern discussions and re-releases of C64 stuff. I love and grew up with both EU and NA games but I suppose it's harder to get rights from some publishers.
Mr_Appleby
Member
WordAssassin
Member
I want a REAL ColecoVision Mini. Apparently the one that came out recently is a piece of crap? ColecoVision was my first console, (I was born in 84 and my dad and older stepbrother were already gaming with ColecoVision and NES as I was growing up) my parents even still have it in their garage but the A/V connectors are busted or something so I can't use it anymore. I was so excited for the Coleco Flashback and so bummed to hear it sucks.
I don't think I've ever played a C64 or anything similar though, so if this is any good at all I'd totally be interested in trying it out to see what predated me. The closest pre-ColecoVision gaming system I've had experience with that wasn't an arcade cabinet was one of those Atari joysticks they used to make that plugged directly into your TV. I doubt that was an ideal introduction/reproduction though.
I don't think I've ever played a C64 or anything similar though, so if this is any good at all I'd totally be interested in trying it out to see what predated me. The closest pre-ColecoVision gaming system I've had experience with that wasn't an arcade cabinet was one of those Atari joysticks they used to make that plugged directly into your TV. I doubt that was an ideal introduction/reproduction though.
SiegfriedFM
Member
www.armigaproject.com
That said, it's clearly an enthusiast product at the moment and it takes a bit of prodding to get games to work. But I'll look around for better pads and hope for a system update or two.