Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light review

We thought the original Govee Gaming Pixel light was pretty awesome when we reviewed it, calling it “a gaming room gem”. But there was one thing missing: branding. Some of its animations emulated famous titles, Outrun and Pac-Man included, but for copyright reasons, none of the ‘games’ were real. Now, Govee has changed that with the Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light.

The LED-powered Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light is an official collaboration between Govee and Bandai Namco. Priced at $139.99 (down to $109.99 at Amazon), it comes in a striking Pac-Man themed box. Accessories include a QR code on a card, used to download six special Pac-Man animations, a set of Pac-Man stickers and a seriously cool Pac-Man lanyard.

All of these goodies are tucked away inside a sleek black envelope. On top of that, an especially neat (and suitably silly) bonus is that the box includes a cut-out and build cardboard arcade machine. It’s purely for display, but Govee and Bandai Namco have gone all with this device’s packaging.

Fire up the Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light and you’re greeted by a logo and a jaunty sound. You have to use the app to install the Pac-Man animations, but they’re suitably cool, and will loop until you turn the light off. There’s Pac-Man being chased by ghosts, Pac-Man roaming around the maze, a fruit machine-style screen and a handful of sound-reactive animations, too.

That’s not to say that the Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light is locked down to Pac-Man – far from it. Via the app, it includes hundreds of display options, animations and static screens. You’re spoilt for choice, from the aforementioned arcade-aping animations, to holiday scenes and more. You’ve even got the option to add music from a pre-selected sound bank.

On top of that, the app’s “Share Space” contains a wealth of user-created content. From Mario to Iron Man to other less copyrighted but still impressive scenes, you really are spoilt for choice (just don’t tell Nintendo or Marvel).

The Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light’s rectangular 52×32 pixel (21.5cm x 13.5cm) screen makes it easier to find animated gifs to import. By contrast, the 32×32 version had me hunting for square gifs that wouldn’t suffer from cropping.

You’ll naturally lose detail with bigger gifs, but the Govee app did a respectable job of importing the below clip from After Burner, Sega’s smash shoot-em-up. Granted, you can’t see it in action, but there wasn’t a single frame dropped. As for Govee’s own animations, they’re as vivid and cool as you could want.

The app’s AI will also create static pictures based on your prompts. Govee does appear to have tweaked this feature a little; I’m happy to report that asking it to produce Pac-Man gave me the game’s playable character, not the weird amalgamation of ghost and Pac-Man I previously received.

Other results, however, will vary. I told it to draw R2-D2 and it gave me a picture of Star Wars’ famous droid. But when I asked it to draw me Homelander from The Boys, I was shown a picture of two children standing by what appeared to be a radioactive beehive. I must have missed that episode.

Want to know more? Then hop over to my review of the original Govee Gaming Pixel Light because this Pac-Man branded version boasts everything that made that model so appealing, with the addition of a wider screen. And, like the original, it boasts smart home integration and the option to mount it on a wall.

But there is one disappointing omission, which you may already have spotted. Despite its Pac-Man packaging and animation options, the device itself has no physical Pac-Man branding. There’s no logo, no maze, no tiny picture of Pac-Man, nothing.

I didn’t expect Govee to manufacture a whole new unit body, not least because the Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light is only on sale for a limited time. But the company went to the trouble of including some fun Pac-Man stickers, so why not make self-adhesive overlays to place on top of the Pixel Light’s face panels?

This grumble aside, this is a great retro-themed gaming gizmo, loaded with more features than you can shake a power pill at. Whether you perch it on your PC, or use it as an improvised arcade marquee, the Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light adds a serious dose of style to any gaming set-up.

Thanks to Govee for supplying a unit for this review. The Govee X PAC-MAN Gaming Pixel Light is available from now until November 30th.