Back in the fall of 1980, I was in junior high school, and I liked four things: girls, basketball, rock music, and, of course, video games. At the Quick Way convenience store near my school, they had three arcade games set up in a small corner at the back: Asteroids, Phoenix, and the cool (if cutesy) new kid on the block, Pac-Man.
Pac-Man Fever would soon overtake the country, me included. The now-iconic game was everywhere and spawned a hit song, a cartoon, and a truck-ton of merchandise, such as puzzles, boardgames, shoelaces, TV trays, watches, keychains, a lunch box with thermos, and far too many other items to mention. I loved gobbling the dots, avoiding and chasing the ghosts, and navigating the maze, and I played the game again and again, before, after, and sometimes during (don’t tell my mom) school.
Now, Numskull has created a highly authentic replica of the coin-op classic for its new Quarter Arcade line of games, which also includes Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Track & Field, Bubble Bobble, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man’s gal pal game, Ms. Pac-Man. The company sent me a Pac-Man unit for review, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the maxi-sized mini arcade. The name “Quarter Arcade” refers to the games being a quarter scale of their arcade counterparts, while also providing a knowing wink that these games cost a quarter to play back in the day.
I was immediately struck by the colorful Collectors Edition box the game came packaged in—it’s definitely a keeper, as are the inserts that came in the box: a slick, multilingual instruction manual, a Certificate of Authenticity (denoting that Pac-Man is limited to ten thousand copies), and, best of all, an engraved collector’s coin with Numskull's logo on one side and the Pac-Man “Ready!” screen on the other.
But it’s really all about the game, so let’s get to that. At 1:4 scale, it’s much bigger than most mini arcades, and, from the cabinet art to the buttons and joystick to the marquee that actually lights up, it’s about as realistic as you could get without actually renting a refrigerator dolly and lugging an original Pac-Man arcade machine into your house. It’s super detailed and includes screws on top, air vents in the back, and a pair of buttons below the faux coin slots that, when pushed, add credits to the machine.
Gameplay is spot-on as the cabinet uses the original arcade ROM on a bespoke emulator, meaning you can indeed use the old patterns that many people memorized to get high scores on the game back in the day. Sound effects and music are faithful as well, though with the smaller speaker the audio is obviously not quite as robust—small complaint because the game looks, sounds, and plays about as well as anyone could expect. It’s durable as well, with the cabinet formed mostly from wood. It charges on the back via USB, and there is a dial for controlling the volume, situated near the on/off button.
If you want to create a game room in your house that features more than just consoles, but you don’t have the room (or perhaps the cash) for a bunch of full-sized arcade machines, you could certainly do worse than grabbing up some Quarter Arcades. For more information, including pricing and ordering (pre-ordering for some of the games), go to http://www.numskull.com/quarter-arcades/
