Micro Arcade Tetris Review: Play Everywhere!
Purchase Price: $19.99
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I am somewhat of a Classic Tetris fanboy. By somewhat, I mean that I love watching people play Tetris at a high level. I myself can barely crack over 500,000 points and level 29 is definitely a pipe dream. Yet watching these unbelievable players like Joseph Saelee and the late great, Jonas Neubauer work their magic every year at the CTWC makes me itch to get back into the grind. When that begins, the flame to that fire burns intensely and I can’t stop playing! I then begin to sleep and breathe Tetris pieces. Although it is an addiction, I personally find it a beneficial addiction as Tetris has done a lot for my mental health over the years. While you can get an emulator portable console to play NES Tetris (which is the best way to do it), I recently came across something that caught my eye due to how portable it looked. This is the Micro Arcade Tetris experience and it literally can fit into your wallet.
Super Tiny!
For those of you who haven’t heard of Micro Arcade, the company sells a bunch of these tiny palm-sized gaming machines with full-game roms of many classic titles. From Space Invaders to Pac-Man, nostalgic gamers have a decent variety of titles to pull out of their pocket at any time. While it is true that fundamentally someone could just download any rom and play it on their smartphone, I personally try not to play Tetris without a physical controller as I’ve noticed I develop bad tendencies for stacking using touch controls. In timing games like this, a physical input is essential. How beneficial could that input be when it’s so small that a button is barely the size of my fingerprint? I’m happy to tell you that it actually does still make a world of a difference.
Be ready to have hand cramps due to the awkwardly tight grip you’ll have for longer sessions. Because the surface field where you’ll be holding the console is so narrow and small, your thumb input on the D-pad and two buttons are awfully cramped. I could probably last about 15-20 minutes before needing to set this down to give my hands a break. The input of the buttons don’t give a lot of feedback as well, but that’s to be expected due to the size. One great thing for Tetris practice is the ability to hard drop (or instant drop with input). I’m excited to say that this has hard drop by pressing up on the D-pad.
The great thing about this little gem is that it is officially licensed by Tetris. Take what you need from that. All I need to say is that Tetris can run fluently on very minimal hardware and it runs exceedingly on this itty bitty platform. Measuring at 3.25 x 2 x 3.75 inches, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it can fit into a men’s wallet. This is basically the size of a credit card and weighs about 3 ounces. It’s slightly too thick to make a comfortable fit in that said wallet, but it can easily slide into the chest pocket of a polo shirt.
Play Anywhere
Portability and flexibility are the prime reasons why anyone would purchase something like this as I will admit the display is just a tad too small to view comfortably for long periods of time. I would estimate that the display panel doesn’t even occupy one-third of the device. It’s narrow and sometimes difficult to gauge the line drop trajectory properly. I’ve misdropped more than I’d like to admit simply because I couldn’t distinguish whether my falling piece was on column 4 or column 5 etc. I’ve had to play much slower and allow the piece to drop closer to the stack in order to securely place it where I want it to go. Playing so close to the stack usually leads to more errors, but I guess for training purposes, my instant decision making has improved with the added pressure. I am pleasantly surprised at the acceptable quality of the LCD backlit colored display. It isn’t the sharpest thing out there, but the colors emitting from the panel are not too bad on the eyes. Can’t really ask for more at $20.
I was even more surprised when I flipped the On switch to be greeted with the classic Tetris theme song (Gameboy version). As a licensed product, I guess Micro Arcade was allowed to throw that in here. Unfortunately, it stops playing in the background after a couple rounds of the chorus theme, but sound effects continue to fill your ears in its place. The audio works fine and there is also a toggle switch on the top left that can turn it off for a silent experience. I’m more than happy with this setup.
For such a miniscule piece of technology, you don’t really need to charge it much. I’ve had this for more than a month now and I’ve probably played 30-50 sessions up to level 15-ish at a time and I still have yet to plug it in. Out of the box, the Micro Arcade comes with a micro-USB to USB-A cable with no charging brick. It’s a simple little setup.
A Patch for Tetris Addiction
I love just pulling this out of my pocket and having a quick session of Tetris. I’ve played this on a 15 minute car ride, a lobby waiting room, waiting in line at Costco, and of course on a toilet seat (I mean who wouldn’t?). Unfortunately, there is no memory on board to save high scores, but I argue that there is no need for that. This isn’t a platform you’re using to set a world record. This is simply an addiction patch. It’s a practice gateway to improve strategies and stacking wherever and whenever. I was honestly expecting a good laugh from this $19.99 MSRP product, but I actually had a few high level runs on this. I honestly do believe that my stacking has improved in not only Tetris Effect, but if my increased high scores on NES Tetris is any indication, my IQ of the game has benefitted too thanks to the extra reps.
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Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!