Lego’s new 2650-piece brick-built Pac-Man arcade cab will drive you dotty

First, there was the Lego NES. Then we got a Lego Atari 2600. Now, an arcade legend is set to join Lego’s retrogaming line-up with the Lego Pac-Man Arcade Machine set.

This collaboration between Lego and Pac-Man owners Bandai Namco nets you a take on the famous yellow arcade cab. Although rather than attempting to mirror the NES and Atari Lego consoles and directly recreate a version of a stand-up arcade unit, the teams working on this kit went in a different direction.

Once built, you get something akin to a desktop unit, along with a slew of add-ons that attempt to channel the spirit of the original arcade machine. Purists might balk, but this does mean you end up with a 32cm high model that has an awful lot more character and interactivity than Lego could have provided on slavishly recreating a full-size arcade cab in brick form.

Lego Pac-Man ain’t afraid of no ghost

Primarily, in choosing this form factor, Lego has been able to make the screen far bigger than it otherwise would have been – and add a measure of interactivity. You of course still can’t play an actual game of Pac-Man on the Lego set. But in a nod to the Lego NES, there’s a crank handle, which provides a simulation of characters scooting about the maze.

Beyond that, there are brick-built takes on Pac-Man and ghosts Blinky and Clyde that can sit upon the cab, which rotate when the crank is used. Lego Pac-Man never gets to catch the ghosts, but perhaps everyone gets so dizzy that their ongoing dispute no-longer matters.

And the surprises don’t end there. Prod a button on the front and you light up the coin slot. Spin the cab around and you can remove its rear panel, to reveal the machine’s innards – and a vignette of a minifig playing a pint-sized Pac-Man arcade unit.

The Lego Pac-Man Arcade Machine set will be available on 1 June. You can order it now for $269.99/£229.99. Lego adds that fans near London might also want to head to the Leicester Square store on 10 and 11 June, where folks will be building gigantic Pac-Man and Lego ghost models. You’ll even get to take home a mini Lego retrogaming arcade, assuming Pac-Man hasn’t eaten them all. (Or while stocks last. Whichever.)

• Related: 55 best large Lego sets: the top enormous Lego sets you should buy

Craig Grannell Contributor

About

I’m a regular contributor to Stuff magazine and Stuff.tv, covering apps, games, Apple kit, Android, Lego, retro gaming and other interesting oddities. I also pen opinion pieces when the editor lets me, getting all serious about accessibility and predicting when sentient AI smart cookware will take over the world, in a terrifying mix of Bake Off and Terminator.

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Mobile apps and games, Macs, iOS and tvOS devices, Android, retro games, crowdfunding, design, how to fight off an enraged smart saucepan with a massive stick.