Centipede and Q*bert Mini Arcade Two-PackRetro arcade machine for the home

Two retro arcade machines for the home in one box

This is the two-pack: a 5.5-inch Centipede cabinet and a 5.5-inch Q*bert cabinet, each a machine in its own right with a marquee, a bezel, a control panel and a colour screen. Two licensed boards for one price is the best value in our collection, and it is the obvious answer when two people in a house want a go at the same time instead of passing one cabinet back and forth.

Centipede and Q*bert, and why they pair well

Centipede is a reflex game: the segments come down the screen and you clear them before they reach you. Q*bert is a puzzle with a timer attached, hopping a pyramid of cubes while Coily chases you off the edge. One rewards speed and one rewards reading the board, so the pair does not get boring the way two shooters would. Both are the original licensed arcade titles with their own sound, including the Q*bert swear.

Scale, sticks and the honest limits

At 5.5 inches these are the Mini Classics build: two AA cells each, a 2-inch colour panel and a four-way stick. The panels are small, so these are desk and shelf machines rather than the ones to hand to someone across a dim room. What you get for the size is two real cabinets with real sticks, which is why the two-pack is the set we point people at when they want to start a collection rather than buy one game.

Who this mini arcade 2-pack is for

Two machines in one box, which makes this the set for a room with two people in it. Each is a compact arcade cabinet of about five and a half inches with its own authentic control and its own official licensed board: Centipede on a stick and Q*bert on a diagonal pad, which is the control the original cabinet used and the reason the game is still awkward in the right way. Batteries, no plug, no coin-operation, nothing to install. The 80s nostalgia is strong and the action is the original difficulty rather than a modern rewrite, so the high scores are earned. As a gift the 2-pack solves the problem of two kids and one machine, and as a starting point it is how most people discover whether a bigger cabinet is worth the space.

How it fits across our collection

These are the smallest machines we build. Above them the 16-inch Counter Series is a tabletop arcade machine designed for a home bar or a desk, and it carries Centipede on a real trackball with four more Atari titles on the board — the upgrading path if the mini version catches on. The 37.5-inch Junior Series is a free standing cabinet for a bedroom, and the 61-inch Ultra Series is a full size floor machine for a dedicated game room. One small family business, a fixed collection of licensed titles, no custom orders and no pinball, which is how the quality of the panel stays level across every size. All of them play free and endless, so the entertainment does not come with a running cost.