Overall, the mini arcade games from My Arcade are a treat. They’re great for an office that needs some fun, the units are cheap in price, and fun to play, especially if you’re looking for a neat arcade experience. Definitely, something you should look into, even if it’s for something to put on a coffee table or desk.
Ahhhh, arcade machines. For those of you old enough to remember the joy of walking into a smoke-filled arcade full of magical gaming sounds and lights, to place your quarter on an arcade screen in hopes of playing the latest/greatest from popular publishers, then you’re in for quite the treat with the My Arcade micro player arcade machines.
We were sent the Pac-Man and Galaxian arcade machines earlier in the week and to be quite honest the expectations for them were running pretty low from the get-go. The idea of playing games on a micro player arcade machine brought back memories of a disappointing 1981 Christmas, where a Donkey Kong mini-arcade machine was delivered, only to be driven by LED lights, rather than an actual arcade replicated experience. The folks at My Arcade were certainly tugging on the heartstrings of us hopeful folks, who lived through those awful days, giving us some semblance of hope that things had changed.
That undying hope has paid off.
The My Arcade micro player arcade machines turned out to be solid short experiences, much like a real arcade game, and added in the visuals, sounds, and a micro USB cable to keep your battery budget down. Each one of the boxes is simple in structure. The coin slot is the power button (you simply push it in to turn it on). Once on, the lovely mini-LCD brings up the title you own, for us it was Pac-Man and Galaxian, then you just play the hell out of a nearly perfect arcade game.
The hardware itself is surprisingly sturdy. I’ve had this for the last week and my giant hands aren’t at all cramped from tiny joystick, which is also removable, if you want to go directional pad on the experience. While the Pac-Man version of the game only has the joystick, as well as the reset/start button, the Galaxian fire button is equally as sturdy. The experience has been amazingly positive with these micro player arcade machines and I would love to see a huge collection of other titles from other publishers. It’s just that good. Everyone who has walked into my office and laid a hand on these these two machines hasn’t walked away not smiling, as the experience feels and plays well.
The games are in each arcade are perfect replicas of their arcade counterparts, sans the screen positioning, which is more 16:9 than upright like the original arcade games. Because of the screen positioning there have been a few adjustments to the games. For example, I suspect this screen positioning is the reason for the Pac-Man screen layout having the fruit show up on the right-side instead of the bottom. The core gameplay of Pac-Man is still intact, minus some sounds from the original arcade game (the ghosts don’t sound the same, but they do sound like the NES version). Regardless, the games are still entertaining and have been a huge hit with folks visiting my office (I’ve had quite a few of them — people tend to avoid my office).
Beyond the games and hardware, another charming feature of the mini arcade boxes is the original artwork from the cabinets. They’re original art and not just simple stickers put on the sides of the cabinet. It’s quite pretty. Now, there was a huge debate (more than once) about Pac-Man’s art. Apparently, no one remembered that Pac-Man originally had awkward looking feet, as most people assumed he was just circular, which he was at one point. He did have feet. It was and is awkward. Namco corrected it at some point in the 80s when Pac-Man took off for branding purposes (thank GOD). When you have to sell albums, cards, cereal, and arcade machines, you probably want to stick with what’s accurate and not awkward. Anyway, it’s original. It’s neat. It works.
All this said, the asking price for the units ($39.99) is spot on the experience. While you can certainly go purchase a Raspberry Pi and try to replicate the experience illegally, and you shouldn’t because artists deserve their money, it’s nice to have a single contained unit with solid parts that look pretty for much of nothing. I believe there are a few of these units with multiple games on them, so at that price point it’s an even better deal.
Overall, the mini arcade games from My Arcade are a treat. They’re great for an office that needs some fun, the units are cheap in price, and fun to play, especially if you’re looking for a neat arcade experience. Definitely something you should look into, even if it’s for something to put on a coffee table or desk.
