Today, I’m taking a quick look at two nifty products for the gamer in your life, even if that gamer is you.  The first is the Raw Thrills Pac-Man Premium LED Desk Clock, and the second is the ThinkGeek Infinite Dungeon Corridor desktop toy.

Pac-Man Premium LED Desk Clock

The Pac-Man Premium LED Desk Clock is officially licensed from Bandai Namco Entertainment, Inc., and provides a vibrant color LED display in a plastic case that’s about 7.5 inches across. It’s AC powered, so requires an outlet, and also requires a manual clock set. Once that’s done, the time is displayed in white LED numbers with a flashing blue seconds divider. Occasionally, an animated Pac-Man sequence runs across the numbers. Although there’s no sound, the look and overall smoothness is really nice.

 

LED Pac-Man clock.

A video posted by Bill Loguidice (@bill_loguidice) on Dec 30, 2016 at 7:59am PST

While I really love the clock, it’s not without its flaws. For one, there are no sound options, even though there’s a speaker cut-out on the back of the case. For another, this is strictly a desktop option. Because of the backing platform, there’s no real ability to hang this on the wall.  Of course, its small size and cord type would make such an option difficult. And finally, the display is extremely bright. It would be nice to have a few brightness and other options for the display.

Pluses:

• Vibrant color display
• Authentic visuals and animation
• Straightforward

 

Minuses:

• Pricey
• Only one brightness level (just a notch below “looking directly at the sun”)
• No sound effects
• Not wall mountable

 

ThinkGeek Infinite Dungeon Corridor

The ThinkGeek Infinite Dungeon Corridor is a battery powered desktop or wall mountable optical illusion. It’s about 3 inches deep and just over 6 inches wide, with a height of approximately 9.5 inches. Three AA batteries, not included, power it. When you want to turn it on, simply flip the switch. Once on, the torch lights flicker convincingly, and, thanks to the discrete mirror backing, appear to go on forever. Of course, the darker the room, the better the effect, since it cuts down on outside reflections.

 

Infinite Dungeon illusion. It looks far better in person.

A video posted by Bill Loguidice (@bill_loguidice) on Dec 15, 2016 at 6:29pm PST

Much like the Pac-Man clock, I really love this optical illusion desktop toy, but it too is not quite perfect. The plastic window is really reflective outside of the darkest of rooms and there’s no option to power this with an AC adapter for longer term use. Finally, when not looking at this straight on, the backing does look every bit of plastic cheesiness from the side.

 

Pluses:

• Effective illusion with a well-matched theme
• Runs on AA batteries

 

Minuses:

• Pricey
• Batteries are not included
• Plastic window is extremely reflective of outside sources
• The exterior casing looks a bit cheesy and plasticky when not viewed straight on
• No AC power option