Part 1: Why?OK you know me, Arcade1ups are stupid kid's toys for 8 year-olds. Yes, yes they are. However they managed to make one that Piqued my interest in the Star Wars model. I like the Atari Star Wars game, had one for 10 years or so. In that 10 years it probably worked about 20 months.. and that wasn't 20 months in a row. I'll never own another one so this setup was a nice alternative. Also this model is a bit bigger than normal and they throw in the pedestal making the end result not quite so pathetic.
Part 2: AssemblyIt's like putting together something from Ikea. Briefcase was over and in between ranting about the Libs we were able to get it assembled in about an hour. Only hiccup was the marquee box was making a nice rattling sound. Figured something might be broken.. uh-oh! No, appears Fung Hao at the factory put the screws in the box for the LED light strip but did not screw them in.. so the screws were just rattling. Easy fix at least. I won't tell the overseers, it's not worth having Fung Hao end up dissected at MOSI. Poor bastard.
Part 3: QualityNot too bad actually. It's like mid-level flat packed bookshelf level. I've seen worse for sure. The cabinet seems sturdy enough (but be careful where you grab it to move it). The art is nice and everything looks like it should be there. They managed to keep their garish Arcade1up logo off most of it, so that's an additional plus. They seem to have learned from some of their mistakes as it comes with a plexi stock to prevent the control panel from rubbing off after 2 months. The height is actually fine, it's actually a bit taller than a cabaret. It's still a foot or so under a full sized game but it's not comically small or anything. It will fit in with my other stand-ups fine.
Part 4: The yoke, the emulationOK this is the real million dollar question, how is the yoke and how does it play. The yoke is actually decent. It's plastic but doesn't feel cheap. It has decent motion.. although it seems more 'springy' than I remember the real yokes being.. but they could have been old and worn out. I actually have a yoke out of a Stun Runner still which i'll have to compare but no real complaints on the yoke. The emulation is also decent, I didn't notice any glaring problems. Well as long as you keep the graphic 'enhancements' off that is.
They allow you to make the Vector graphics look different with various filters and there's a scanline mode in Return of the Jedi.. it all looks terrible. Default is fine though. The interface is also nice enough, doesn't look cheap and it's easy to navigate around. I've actually been playing
Jedi the most because I barely played that in arcades because its so damned frustrating and there were so many better games in 1984.. so it's nice to be able to play it now (never bothered on an emulater without the proper controller).
Part 5: Conclusion, am I getting 5 more of these?I mainly pulled the trigger on this because they dropped the price down to $399. I think at that level it's fine. You get a game you can't really play otherwise and one that would cost you a pantload to buy today.. in repair fees alone. This particular model also doesn't feel like a cheap toy you have to get on your knees to play. That said I don't think these make sense otherwise. I'd love to see 4 adults gather around and play the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one. So this is it for me and I'm OK with it. I can play Star Wars again and I don't have to wence in terror everytime I power it on like I used to with the real one.
