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REVIEW: THE C64 MINI

9/4/2018

19 Comments

 
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I never had a Commodore 64, but I had a couple of mates who owned one. For most of the 80s, I was a loyal ZX Spectrum owner, but not so blindly zealous that I was above flirting with other hardware... coquettishly twirling a stray lock of hair, licking my lips - one after another - and smashing my groin against a bar stool (as I understand flirting to be). 

I had mixed feelings towards the C64. Clearly, it was a more powerful machine than its rival - capable of displaying as many as 64 shades of brown simultaneously (hence the name) - and with a proper keyboard (also brown) to boot. Indeed, it's a little known fact that The Bristol Stool Chart was originally called The Commodore Stool Chart. 

​However, somehow I never wanted a C64 instead of my Speccy. I'm not entirely sure why. It might be the colours. I joke about all The Browns, but there was something vibrant and magical about the Spectrum's garish colour palette. The C64, by comparison, seemed dull and muted. Everything was sort of washed-out, like you were watching some sort of avant garden performance piece featuring cardboard puppets, entitled Monsieur Marron Se Rend à la Ville de Marron.

But get this: now I do own a Commodore 64. Sort of. It's this: The C64 Mini, clearly inspired by the success of Nintendo's miniature NES and Super NES, hosting a collection of original Commodore 64 games stuffed into a cute little C64 replica. 
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BAULK
Stupid retrogaming purists tend to baulk at this trend to shrink stuff down and make old games easy to play. Really, though, The C64 Mini isn't aimed at them. It's for people who can't be doing with the faff of playing on the original hardware, or emulation, or a Raspberry Pi, and just want a quick, easy, cheap and cheerful way of getting a nostalgia fix.

From the moment it arrives The C64 Mini is going straight for the nostalgia bone; the packaging and the manual are both modelled on their original equivalents. It has a HDMI cable (good), though the power lead is just a USB (less good).

Disappointingly, the keyboard doesn't work; it's just moulded plastic, like my late uncle's prosthetic leg. Doubly disappointingly, when a keyboard is required - such as with included version of BASIC - you have to resort to using a virtual keyboard. There is the option of plugging in an external one via USB, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

Admittedly, though, I probably wouldn't even be whingeing about this had they not included BASIC at all, and just gone with the games.

But let us talk of these games; there are 64 of them, and they're a mixed "bag of browns". However, there is the option, apparently, to load more games onto the hardware. I've not tried it, but reportedly it's a bit of a faff... and most people who purchase this unit are going to be sticking with what's there.

​Indeed, once they realise how bad everything plays there isn't going to be much incentive to ever play another Commodore 64 game for as long as they live.
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FRONT-BOTTOM
The front-end of the C64 Mini is very similar to how Nintendo has presented its mini classics; a menu at the bottom, a bit of a blurb above, the option to play using an assortment of screen modes and resolutions, plus a selection of save file slots for each game. 

​The games are a weird mix. There are a number of titles that are very, very similar to one another; multiple identikit shoot 'em ups, and a lot of doubling up by including sequels. Sometimes this works - California Games, Winter Games and Summer Games 2 are all much of a muchness, but at least offer different events. However, you didn't really need both Speedball and Speedball 2, or no fewer than three games featuring a bouncing ball. 

You do get a few classics in there - Skool Daze and Everyone's A Wally (both more commonly associated with the ZX Spectrum), Impossible Mission 1 & 2, Creatures, Boulder Dash - but also a lot of padding.

Whereas Nintendo obviously had the rights to the best games on the SNES and NES, that isn't the case here, which is why the C64 Mini lacks system-defining titles like Maniac Mansion, IK+, Mercenary, and The Last Ninja.

To be honest though, it's hard to grumble when there are 64 games on offer - if you ignore how similar many of them are. Although, admittedly, that's a bit like saying "it's hard to grumble about being mugged if you ignore how awful an experience it is".

What did surprise me, is how good many of them looked. The C64 really was a surprisingly machine for its time. Yes, the colours are very muted, yes... there are 50 Shades of Brown on display, but the animation on a lot of these really does shine.

Regrettably, while they're nice to look at... well... 
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STICK IT TO 'EM
The bundled control method for The C64 Mini is a joystick modelled on the iconic Competition Pro. It makes allowances for the lack of keyboard input via a bunch of additional buttons (though working out the function of which is usually trial-and-error).

The bottom line is this: it's a horrible, horrible controller. The joystick is stiff and unresponsive - much as I remember it being... only worse - and you end up having to learn to make allowances for that. Although learning to do so is a lesson that only the most single-minded and masochistic user is going to tolerate.

It's completely counterintuitive, and - when you couple it to how punishing games of that era were (and the fact that the manuals for the games here are only available on the manufacturer's website) - it makes the experience of playing on The C64 Mini utterly soul-destroying.

It doesn't help that the joystick is clearly designed to be sat on a desktop while using it. Given that the nature of the system is as a more casual novelty thing, designed to sit beneath the TV (and, while we're at it, with that in mind... would it have killed them to make the cables a little bit longer?), holding it in your hand, just doesn't work as there's nothing to brace against.

Supposedly, you could plug in a different controller, which would make the whole thing slightly more user-friendly, but you can't re-map the controls, and can't do much about how obtuse and difficult a lot of these games are to play, regardless of the control method. Actually, it goes beyond difficult, on occasion, to utterly unplayable. 

Of course, that's not really the fault of a system which goes all-out to offer an authentic re-imagining of a long-gone era. In some respects, The C64 Mini is all the more authentic for refusing to make compromises to progress, and the fact that games have evolved and improved. 

Still, given that this is a product aimed at a more casual, nostalgia-hungry audience, it seems like a mistake not to leverage every concession to make it a more user-friendly experience.  

SCORE: 31 out of 64
19 Comments
Mrtankthreat
9/4/2018 01:06:10 pm

Review reads more like a 23 out of 57.

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Sue Denim
10/4/2018 12:04:21 am

Comment reads more like a snidey piece o shit.

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Dominic
12/4/2018 02:44:20 am

He’s just making a funny comment.
Only snidy sounding comment is your own.

RichardM
9/4/2018 01:21:21 pm

The keyboard isn’t real!? That’s a bucket of guffs right there. The idea of attaching a real keyboard to a pretend keyboard is a bit much for me.

Always found the C64 a bit exotic and scary, the Speccy felt like home.

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Mark M
9/4/2018 01:31:41 pm

No working keyboard? What is this sacrilege! O_o

Looking at the games list, sure there are some classics but I can't believe they didn't include R-Type, Wizball, IK+ and Last Ninja 2.

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@purplephlebas
10/4/2018 08:41:37 am

Those were the only games id want to revisit to be honest. Frankly unbelievable. Can only assume licensing-knack.

Also: Wizball the movie long overdue. Idris Elba to lead

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Sixty-Phwoooarrr
9/4/2018 03:44:28 pm

The inclusion of games all comes down to licencing. R-Type is an arcade conversion so they'd never get the licence from Irem. IK+ and The Last Ninja games are System 3 who are a going concern and don't allow licencing easily. Wizball was an Ocean game and there are no Ocean games on here so clearly the licences weren't obtainable.

The mini keyboard was always going to be purely aesthetic. This is not meant to be a computer, it's intended to be along the lines of the NES Mini - an easy to use machine reminiscent of the original.

There are no bad games on there, not a single one. They might be rendered difficult to play by the cack joystick which is a shame, but you can't knock the quality of what's on there. I guess the fact that people are saying "why isn't this, that or the other on there" is testament to how many great games the C64 had.

And yes, my rose-tintec spectacles have a very brown hue to them...

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Hamptonoid
9/4/2018 09:54:15 pm

I can't get my head around how they couldn't get licencing for those top titles. The Last Ninja series was released 30 odd years ago, and you can freely emulate it from many sources. What are they gaining by not allowing it to be included?

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CdrJameson
9/4/2018 11:21:48 pm

Not getting sued?

Hamptonoid
10/4/2018 07:25:59 am

I meant that System 3 etc. aren't gaining anything . It's not as if anyone is still buying those games, and surely they can't have plans to release them on any orher format e.g. mobile (unlike Bounder or Footy Manager, which work well on a mobile).

Nikki
9/4/2018 04:40:12 pm

Lots of people and reviews are complaining about input lag too. I know people who have returned theirs because of that.

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Johnc
9/4/2018 05:55:10 pm

So the C64 mini has a keyboard that doesn't work and my Recreated ZX Spectrum is just a Bluetooth keyboard and has no games (without using my phone to do the emulation bit). What is up with these idiots?

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Col. Asdasd
9/4/2018 06:56:45 pm

"Stupid retrogaming purists tend to baulk at this trend to shrink stuff down and make old games easy to play. "

I got banned from Eurogamer for suggesting Simon Parkin was being a bit of a gatekeeper, after he wrote a lengthy article bemoaning the fact that Japanese game shops were selling their hard-to-acquire retro hardware online. The effect on the shops' display stock was spoiling his retail experience you see.

Apparently you don't deserve to play the classics unless you have a job that lets you rock up to Akihabara in the middle of the work-week. Fuck that attitude sez I.

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S Hawke
9/4/2018 07:08:46 pm

The thing with the keyboard is this - the original indiegogo campaign was for a handheld console and a larger computer version, with a working keyboard, and more than 64 games (including a new original game). The campaign fell a little bit short of the funding target, and retailers wanted a mini console like the mini NES, so the C64 mini was a stop gap measure to bring in some sales. The larger version with the working keyboard is hopefully coming out later this year.

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Taucher
9/4/2018 07:36:09 pm

I was definitely n the C64 camp when I was younger, Speccy owners seemed like an odd bunch in those partisan days. Will buy a C64 mini, might be able to get past the first level of Monsters for the first time ever. It's weird that many of the games included I have never heard of but as someone said, that could be testament to the sheer number of games available. Monsters and Skool Daze make it almost worth the money alone.

Mind you, if it had Kikstart 2 I'd have bought it already...

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Pylori
9/4/2018 08:28:49 pm

I've heard some good things about the C64mini bit this review blows them out of the water. The joystick is essential to the C64 experience. We all had out favourite, with that sweet spot. To learn that this has been ignored by the Dev is a poor thing indeed. You can play games after a fashion bit are unable to save progress is another bog blow. And let's not even discuss the keyboard. So I won't be getting one and will continue to emulate and occasionally pull out the original hardware for a dust off.
Disappointed.

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Dr. Budd Buttocks, MD
9/4/2018 10:49:34 pm

The Commodore 64 was an absolutely brilliant machine for its day, but hardly anyone I knew had one, as it was a little expensive.

I had its stunted, completely incompatible sibling, the Plus 4. Most of the games were atrocious.

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Mark M
10/4/2018 09:17:01 am

On a side note does anyone know why the colour palette in the C64 seemed to be mostly in muted pastel shades? At first I thought it was to do with PAL output but the spectrum did just fine.

Look at Cybernoid 2 on the CPC and the colour saturation is night and day Vs the C64.

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Irregular Shed
10/4/2018 12:27:00 pm

"31 out of 64" is, incidentally, the number of kilobytes of usable RAM in a C64 once you take the screen buffer and that out of the equation. All those browns, taupes, beiges and tans take their toll on them bytes.

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