For Christmas, I got an Arcade 1UP Ms. Pac-Man Tabletop. Last year, I had bought a 1up Space Invaders stand up Arcade. I'm going to compare both units a little bit at the end of this- for those wondering over one or the other! So let's get down to the tabletop first! As I got it as a gift, I'm hesitant to state the price, but I understand mine cost 125$. It may had been on sale at the time.
The Tabletop comes assembled in a cardboard box. You merely need to unpack it and plug it in. I found this really easy to setup. It's also not very heavy and is easily moved around. It is not battery powered and needs to be plugged into the wall to get power.
The unit itself is solidly built. Mine accidentally fell off a table and landed on it's flat right side the day I got it. I picked it up, turned it on to see if it broke and everything worked just fine, no issues! No breakage. I would still not suggest throwing this across the room. But I'm glad it did not crack or break the unit the one time it dropped.
The controls are a mixed bag. The joystick clearly has a micro-switch, but the buttons do not, and have that mushy feeling, which can feel a little tactility wrong. They do serve their purpose well enough. The control surface doesn't feel cramped, despite the small size of the unit. The screen is a little small, and I wish it was larger. But it's perfectly serviceable for the countercade unit otherwise.
There are four games on the unit, which I consider a great value. Ms. Pac-Man, the star of the unit, Pac-Man Plus, Galaga and Dig Dug II. The games are the arcade versions as expected of the Arcade 1-up units. They play as you expect each game to play without any problems.
As a comparison to the larger Space Invaders- the tabletop did not need long, complicated, exasperating assembly. The volume on the tabletop also works as it does on a TV, with a meter where you can set to a variety of acceptable volumes instead of just the Space Invader's 'LOUD!' 'Less Loud!' and 'Mute.'. I would probably had bought the Space Invaders tabletop had it existed at the time.
Overall, I give the Ms. Pac-Man tabletop a 9 out of 10 Wakka-Wakka-Wakkas.
