World's Smallest Tiny Arcade: Ms. Pac-Man

Recently I met some family at Cracker Barrel for dinner with my family. I can never go into that place with my kids without buying something in their store. I usually could care less for the store and just let my wife and kids rummage through everything, but on this trip I saw something that caught my eye...a Tiny Arcade.

At first I thought this was just a novelty keychain, then I saw the hole in the plastic and the "Try Me!" starburst on the packaging. I had to remove the plastic tab from the rear battery compartment and then the game loaded right up. The classic coin-op title screen and gameplay...all squished down onto a very small screen.

This whole arcade machine is only about two inches tall by one inch wide. Yes, this thing is small. To my surprise when the game turned one, the marquee lit up! The screen is a nice, bright, LCD screen. There wasn't much blur if any by Ms. Pac-Man or the ghosts. The game played fine, something that I wasn't expecting. The little joystick is more of a rounded nub than an actual joystick, but felt it had a micro switch inside. It was really responsive, something that is needed if you are going to play a game such as this...especially on such a small screen. Of course the buttons weren't needed during gameplay, but those too seemed firm and responsive. The music and sound was spot on and had a good volume. There wasn't a switch to control the volume or the brightness of the screen, but it doesn't seem as if those are needed.

The best part of this is the fact that I introduced my youngest daughter to Ms. Pac-Man. She actually really enjoyed the game and I had a hard time taking it from her when it was time for bed. I believe this Tiny Arcade was $19.99, but that might have been a marked up being that it was in a Cracker Barrel store. Your mileage may vary if you can find this at local retail or online. Overall this is still more a novelty type item than an actual handheld game, but the quality of this pleasantly surprised me. I believe there are a few more classic arcade games in the series, including Pac-Man and Space Invaders.