Hello everyone, I've received a mini arcade machine.
In fact, it's a Pacman mini collector's edition from Numskull.
So I thought we could have a little look at it.
I believe normally there'd be a collector's coin here.
But there isn't because this is an early prototype.
Inside is the arcade cabinet...
LOOK AT HOW SMALL IT IS.
SO CUTE.
[LAUGH]
It's a small arcade cabinet.
It's to scale.
It's quarter size I believe.
Pacman arcade cabinet.
Let's have a closer look shall we.
Because we should so that.
That's what we should do.
So, what we have here is a 1/4 size replica of the original pac-man arcade cabinet released
way back in 1980.
It's officially licenced from Namco and it certainly looks the part.
I played an early sample at the London Play Expo and found it a pleasing experience, so
let's find out how this one fairs to more scrutiny.
First up, let's have a look around.
Up top we've got the Pac-Man marquee, this is a perspex panel, rather than an opaque
board, which is important to replicate that warming radiating glow from the artwork.
Underneath that is the exact layout of the original machine, scaled down with a 5 inch
4:3 radio TFT screen.
We've even got the coin slots underneath with depressible coin release buttons.
The side panels feature the original art work, and they seem to be made in the same way the
arcade cabinets are with ply-wood, painted sections and vinyl coverings.
It's a nice little unit, with some pleasing attention to detail.
Apparently, that sticker will be replaced with a metal plaque on the production versions,
so that's nice.
Measurement wise its 430mm tall, 210mm deep and 160mm wide.
Apparently Numskull are looking to release a set of different machines, so you can make
up your own mini arcade, to, I dunno, entertain your collection of ferrets or something.
But each run is limited to 10,000 units worldwide.
That's not many, so if you want one, BEST you get your skates on.
BUT, of course, you'll want to know some more information first.
Such as, how does it play?
That's pretty important if you actually want to use this thing.
Well to start with, you can power the cab either from micro-usb, with the included 1.8m
cable, or you can run off the unit#s rechargeable battery, which you give you about 4 hours
of play time.
It's a little to big to lug about for portable use.
You're not likely to whip this out on the underground are you?
But I guess its useful if you want to take it somewhere else...
I can't think of anywhere off the top of my head.
We've also got a power switch and volume control back here.
So, let's boot her up.
Mmmmmmm, memories of arcade.
BUT WHERE I'M A GIANT, PLAYING A DINKY LITTLE MACHINE.
I feel so powerful.
I do enjoy that backlit marquee, it's quite dim, but still adds to the arcade feel without
distracting from the screen.
Now, before I get too carried away, this is running the original arcade ROM, through emulation.
That's fine, that's what you'd expect.
But is the emulation any good?
To add credits, you can either press the player 1 or player 2 coin return button.
You can also choose to play in 2 player mode - where you take turns - or single player.
From there on out it's PACMAN baby, and I'm reassured that the hiding places Jon Stoodley
taught me still work - you remember, the Pacman record holder.
When the ghosts are in search mode, if you sit here, they will never find you.
That sneaky little pac, hiding away.
Look at him.
That reassures me that this is indeed the arcade ROM, so let's play.
Controlling this little guy is pretty nice using the tiny micro-switched joystick.
You can hold it between your fingers, or just use a single finger to push it about.
Either way works, and either way is responsive.
I wouldn't say it's AS responsive as the arcade machine.
Sometimes little pacman didn't go the way I wanted him to, but whether that's due to
emulation or the less definite feel of a small joystick, I'm not sure.
99.9% of the time, it was fine, so wasn't really an issue.
If you're going to play any game on a tiny machine, then Pacman is really one of the
easiest to scale down and still be playable.
You haven't got any fire buttons, just 4 simple directions, and really, it's just a small
version of pac-man, which brings back about a quarter of the nostalgia, as you'd expect.
A couple of issues I did have on this sample machine were that the volume control doesn't
give you a smooth level increase.
There's a point where it just leaps from fairly quiet to LOUD.
You also can't turn the sound completely off.
Both of these points are annoying, but Numskull assure me that this will be resolved in production
machines.
I should note that when the 3-watt speaker is pumping out loud sound, it's reasonable,
but there is some distortion on lower frequencies.
My other issue is that, due to scaling, not all of the on screen elements look perfect.
Some dots are slightly spill over an extra pixel, compared to others.
But that's something you're unlikely to avoid when scaling down to a small TFT screen, unless
you have a much higher resolution.
That may annoy perfectionists, which I can understand.
Personally, I'm not bothered, it looks absolutely fine for the most part.
Now, this video wouldn't be any cop without opening her up.
So let's do that.
Couple of screws in the back, and there we go.
It looks like how you'd expect to look really.
We've got a sticker down there indicating this is firmware version 1.3.
But then we also have these loose wires, with TXD, RXD and Ground labels.
TXD stands for Transmit data, RXD is receive and ground is ground, so I presume these are
testing connections for this early unit.
On the main board we have an All Winner Tech V3 chip - which is actually an ARM Cortex
A7 CPU designed for the digital recording devices originally.
Alongside that is a Winbond memory chip, which offers something like a gig of memory.
More than enough for your average game of pac-man I think.
I played this little baby for about an hour, and I enjoyed it.
I'd probably play it again.
But I think the main draw here is how it looks.
This thing would look tremendous lined up with a series of other machines, especially
when they're all on, pushing their attract modes.
If you've got any toddlers to hand, you could line them up in this tiny arcade, and pretend
huge ogres were taking over an aracade.
I think that's what Numskull's vision is, and it's one which I like.
Of course at £150 a pop, you'll end up spending close to a grand to amass a decent collection
of them - when they're released - but that may be your thing.
It also makes a nice Christmas present, which I believe it why they're shipping in December.
So I'll pop a link below if you fancy taking a look yourself.
Otherwise, you could always spend that money on trips to the nearest retro arcade, and
play the real cabinet a few times.
Decisions, decisions.
So there we go.
There is the Pacman mini, collectable arcade cabinet from Numskull.
Not to be confused by with the Numskulls from the Beano or Dandy of because, because they
are very different things, and we don't like confusion around here.. hmmm
Thanks for watching!
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