Reviewing the Atari 400 Mini: Neat Device, Room for Improvement
Вставка
- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- Here's an Atari 400 Mini review! It's time to look at the built-in lineup of games, like Miner 2049er and M.U.L.E.. I'm also going to run a bunch of additional 8-bit Atari games on it via a USB stick full of games. Featuring the host of The Jeff Gerstmann Show, Jeff Gerstmann! Apparently the MULE crashes encountered here will be fixed in a future firmware update. The audio on the 400 Mini isn't quite as stuttery as it sounds here in this capture, I'm not sure what happened there, it sounds off on my end, but not off in this specific way. Maybe something about the way the device handles HDMI out, perhaps I'll investigate that further.
00:00:00 - Intro
00:12:18 - The Atari 400 Mini
01:37:40 - Conclusion - Ігри
When you touched that mountain in M.U.L.E. and the screen went all crazy, it reminded me of something that would happen in Inscryption. I am currently on act 3 of Inscryption 😅.
Atari systems were generally hard to come by in Northern Europe. So for someone like me, who lives in Denmark, it’s really neat to be able to have a access to it now. Thanks for the review Jeff !
I went to my local game store and saw a boxed copy of Keystone Kapers for the 5200, it's there just in case of emergency.
That audio is fucking CRISPY
The menu music on ThisIsPete's 400 Mini sounds a lot clearer and drastically less distorted and the sound is correct and so that's encouraging for when you do the rewire. As you say in the description the creators are aware of the bug in MULE and it'll be fixed. You can run the standard image of the game from USB and it runs fine. It's weird that you can only change between NTSC and PAL when you boot it up for the first time, it only lets you change when you factory reset it.
The Atari 400 was my first computer in 1980. Your audio definitely sounds garbled in this stream. Received my Mini today and it does not sound like that.
Sounds like a clocking issue between the 400 and the capture gear, sample rate not lining up!
Hi Jeff, I had a real ATARI 400 back in the eighties. I got it for cheap when it was on sale. The big thing for me was to play Star Raiders. I had Star Raiders on a cartridge.
Other than that, the ATARI 400 just bored me. Just looking at it made me think, what's the point? lol The keyboard and all, don't get me started. - I'm looking at this rerelease of the ATARI 400 in disbelief. I'm thinking, why would they bring back the ATARI 400? It was terrible! 😄
The Commodore 64 that came out later was a better way to get people started with computers.
Playing games totally started for me with the Super Nintendo in 1992. It was genius! Super Mario World was incredible. Super Mario World had atmosphere and deep moments I didn't knew from games back then.
In the 1990s there were the ATARI ST computers. Great tools to make electronic music with MIDI and all.
My first "real computer" 😀 was an IBM Aptiva with 300mhz in 1999. - By todays standards, nothing to write home about. But coming from the crappy systems mentioned before, this IBM computer with Windows was another world. I was able to watch whole movies encoded in Divx or Xvid.
Getting information on the net... I was checking out GameSpot too in my early Internet days. :) GameSpot and Jeff Gerstmann, that was a good combination, it had originality. After they kicked you out, GameSpot was just one of many doozy video game websites.
These days I just look up UA-cam for information about games. The name of the game plus the words review or gameplay. That gets the job done. Enough with particular video game websites. We're all game reviewers. lol
I remember watching the trailer of Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2001. That was big! I was very impressed by that.
Back to the dead, I mean, the ATARI 400. 😄 They should just let it rest in peace, I mean, what is this? 🥱
Yo Jeff, if I think about you and GameSpot, I only think about the good times. That's all that matters to me. 🙂👍
Not familiar with many of these but Boulder Dash is pretty good. Played that on DOS, I think. Just remembered there is a freeware Boulder Dash clone made as an advert for Citybank that is excellent! Boulder Dash sometimes feel like a lot of the levels are filler. That City Bank Boulder Dash game is more tightly designed but still has everything in it that makes Boulder Dash fun.
The sound is distorted in a weird emulator like way
There seem to be wild variations on the quality of the joystick. Mine is nigh unusable, trying to go left or right in Bruce Lee almost always ducks as though you are pressing down no matter how delicate you try to be, but jumping (diagonal up/dir) works fine. They released some bs about how it's because it's meant to be used lightly for up/down left right and pushing harder is more likely to be detected as diagonal, but if that was the case, wouldn't I also have unwanted jumps? I've got a couple 3rd party usb old style sticks I'll probably just use with a usb kbd.
You are right about the button configs as well, why not just have option, select, and space bar as standards, and then others programmable.
If they rerelease it as one of the XE/XL line computers I'll buy it in heartbit. Unfortunately have zero nostalgia for 400.
_periodically glancing over at my second monitor, wondering what in God's name is going on_
I already have a 800xl with an sd2sio so a mini 400 is useless for me but I'm not a big fan of the mini home computers or mini consoles any way, they have low utility for the cost. I have a raspberry pi 4 too if i want to make a tiny emulator machine (i just emulate on my main pc).
I had a Nanoxia case that was a rip off Fractal Design but improved. I've fallen off sound damped cases hard, i much rather have good airflow and fans at a low rpm. My current case is a Fractal North which i like a lot.
Since the 5200 was my first console, I'm actually kind of interested in this. Looks mostly okay. No Star Raiders is a huge turn off though. I know playing it with keyboard is the ideal way, but I got used to the keypad on the shitty controller without any trouble.
The best part of the mini is “out if thr box” support for adding your own games via USB. It also is compatible with USB keyboards and controllers. The 4 ports make it easy.
So here's what I've never understood about that Bruce Lee game: why is that one enemy green? Is he a sumo lizard or something? Was that just what they had to work with color-wise on these computers? It just looks so weird to me.
Mule kinda like mario party then?
This video almost made me think Peter advises..someone what to target.... Or maybe his drinking buddies
The audio is straight up broken, that's garbage for a released product.
first
gerst
Encounter on C64 is one of my all-time favourite games for that machine. Insanely fast and tense blaster.
Also, yup, that Master System Bruce Lee friggin' rips. Such an impressive conversion.