Jakks Pacific Namco TV Game

Submitted by b on Wed, 11/14/2018 - 09:14

I was at a yard sale recently and I found a Namco TV Game that was made by Jakks Pacific around 2003. It's a small device that easily fits in my hand, has a joystick and a fire button, and it looks kind of like a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet if you saw off the monitor, the marquee, and everything below the control panel. It also has audio/video cables built-in and runs off battery power, so you can just plug it into any handy television and start playing games. I meant to get some pictures of it, but I apparently didn't, so this picture of Amok Time Kirk shrugging disinterestedly will have to do.

Amok Time Kirk Action Figure

I picked up this thing for two dollars which also included batteries that had some charge left in them, so I was able to game right away... as soon as I found a suitable television. I was ready to play some of the 80's most iconic arcade games, and also Bosconian.

True to the artwork on the sides of the machine, this thing does contain Dig-Dug, Pac-Man, Rally-X, Galaxian, and Bosconian. Well, versions of those games, at least. These aren't exactly arcade-perfect recreations, but they're not quite as limited as the, say, NES ports of the games, either. I guess I can't expect true 1:1 arcade emulation on a machine the size of a large apple, and what we have here isn't too bad. Though, from the video above it's pretty clear that I'm severely out of practice in all of the games. Especially Bosconian, which I've now played exactly once.

I don't know that I have much more I can say about this thing. It's a kind of a fun distraction for a few minutes. It runs on battery power, so I don't have to worry about finding a place to plug it in. But it also runs on battery power, so that when I play it once and then stick it in a box and forget about it for five years the batteries will corrode and ruin it, which means I'll have to throw it away.

Unless I give it to someone and make it their problem. And, as they say, 'tis the season.

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