Customer Ratings & Reviews

Super fun to have the nostalgic games and controls feel. If you TV (mine is connected to a “lower-end” LG LCD tv) or monitor has a video or picture setting feature, make sure it is set to “GAME” mode, otherwise you may experience latency in the controls— a perceptible delay between commanding the buttons, spinner, and trackball to the response of the on-screen ship, target, etc. motion. This latency reduction with the LG tv picture mode set to “game” applies to the Countercade PAC-MAN console, as well. The “GAME” mode setting seems to avoid any additional processing latency (delay) by removing extra processing that is applied if the picture mode is set to other types such as “cinema”, or “vivid”, etc. The trackball is pretty sensitive to motion/roll inputs. I find I have to make fairly small roll-motions, and there is some jitter to the movement of the shooter-ship. The trackball and spinner don’t quite feel like I remember from the ol’ quarter-crunching arcade units, but I find the controls good enough to scratch the nostalgic arcade glitch!

The controls feel sturdy and authentic. The games here are special in that most of them need the trackball or spinner. These are also games from my prime arcade days way back when, Tempest being my favorite. I love sitting back in my recliner with this on my lap. It's a good weight, not too heavy or light. The biggest reason I didn't give it five stars is the sensitivity of the trackball and spinner are a bit too high, and I haven't found a way to adjust that. It feels too easy to go a little too far in Centipede, Tempest, and the rest. I feel like, with enough research, I should be able to open it up and make some adjustments, but it's not so bad that I feel urgent about it. I just need more practice!

The value isnt there with this Couchcade. While it plays and handles well, the lack luster line up of games (which are very very small files so i know space wasn't the issue) is very underwhelming, especially with a pricetag of almost $200.