LEGO’s Pac-Man Arcade is its greatest gaming tribute yet

In recent years, the lego group It has undergone a kind of transformation. Something clicked for the company as clearly as two classic studded 2×4 bricks snapping together; Adults like these things as much as children.

This realization has given rise to a new category of Lego, occasionally labeled ‘Adults Welcome’: Clad in sleek black boxes and with eye-popping piece counts and prices, these sets are for the young at heart more than the young. And brilliantly, this realization has coincided with Lego realizing that video game franchises are worth their time too.

These two changes for Lego have resulted in some fun games for kids, such as the Minecraft, Mario and Sonic ranges. But scattered around these releases are bigger, more intricate sets for adults: the Mario 64? Block, Lego NES and Atari, a set based on Horizon Zero Dawn and a giant model of Bowser. And today, Lego unleashes its best gaming nostalgia yet.

Now, to be fair, regular VG247 readers will know that I like Lego and I like arcades. So, I admit that I am probably at the center of the Venn diagram of the audience for this set. But seriously, look at it. This is Lego Pac-Man Arcade set 10323.

This is a decent sized model, just over 30cm tall, 25cm wide and 17cm deep. But really, what impresses about this package is its feature set.

Much of the joy here is similar to that found in the beautiful, intricate dioramas and brilliant folding mechanism of the Mario 64 Mystery Block set, but what’s different here is that the form factor ties squarely to a coveted Real world object from when Pac-Man ruled the world: the original arcade cabinet.

Honestly, this little thing is perfect. Obviously the original cabinet was full size; this has been given tabletop proportions, which means the duller bottom half of the cabinet is missing. But that top half, what a top half it is. And in this Lego game, it is packed with rewarding features.

When I say rewarding, what I really mean is twofold. One, they’re fun to watch and play with, but two, and perhaps most importantly, they’re fascinating to build.

Many of these touches are small. Anyone who fondly remembers the arcade machines of the ’80s and ’90s remembers the subtle red glow of a white LED behind a semi-transparent red plastic coin plate, and that’s lovingly recreated in this cabinet. One of the Lego light bricks is hidden in the set, and when you press the button that in real life is Pac-Man’s start button, the coin slot lights up with an authentic glow.

The arcade stick itself is tactile and not static; you can tilt and move it in place to pretend you are playing. And on top of the cabinet, a giant brick-built Pac-Man and two ghosts can be flipped with a switch, changing the hunters to the hunted, flipping the trio around and causing the ghosts to turn blue as if a pellet had been consumed. of energy. Even the high score panel can be switched between four different options.

The crowning achievement of the set, however, is the game board. The maze itself is created with a large number of printed plate pieces, and behind it some fairly uncommon Technic items and a completely new piece are used to create a moving element in the maze.

The Lego NES shipped with a television that could scroll through part of Mario’s iconic 1-1. Here, Pac-Man and the four ghosts are able to travel through at least part of Pac-Man’s maze when he turns a crank on the side of the cabinet, giving the appearance that the game is in motion.

The characters actually just run a few tight loops that go around about half of the game’s traditional play area, but it’s an attractive toy and an awesome party trick. The mechanism is also a fascinating construction that is built separately from the rest of the cabinet and then cleverly snapped into place.

The set is completed with a small scale version of a Lego minifigure of the cabinet, a playing lady, a gumball machine and a stool – a small representation of an 80’s arcade. This is hidden within the set, but you can easily remove it to display it separately. This is the most cheeky part of the set, really; I think a lot of people would buy this to get a city scale arcade cabinet, but the only way to get it is as part of a much more expensive set.

However, I adore this set. While it’s expensive at £229.99 / $269.99, its 2,651 piece count doesn’t make this value terrible by any means, and it’s lovely-looking. I had a great time with the build, and this is a set I will be prominently displaying.

Probably the biggest blow against this machine, in fact, is the popularity of Pac-Man. You can pick up a real, playable tabletop Pac-Man replica from Arcade1Up for less than this construction set. You can get a three-quarter cabinet that you can physically stand on and play for a similar price. But it’s also fair to say that half the joy of Lego is building it, displaying it, and knowing that something this amazing was improbably built out of tiny plastic bricks.

So yeah, I adore him. Perhaps the best review I can give is to say that he got me thinking: what about a Street Fighter 2 cabinet? Or Donkey Kong? I would buy more of these, for my sins, which is always a sign that they’ve nailed it.