Give Your Back a Break!

image from @johnandersen21

Definitely not the way to do it, now that they come in more pocket-friendly sizes. A company called Basic Fun has been shrinking arcade games from the 1980s down to a handheld size, and selling them at stores including Wal-Mart and (somewhat puzzlingly) the Cracker Barrel chain of restaurants. They're a fair distance from arcade perfect... some games are clearly running on Famiclone hardware, while others have the eerily accurate sounds but painfully choppy animation of cell phone ports from ten years ago. Regardless, it's a pretty nifty novelty, and at twenty dollars each it's hard to complain about the price. Even if the games don't satisfy you, you can always bring your Christmas tree to life by sticking a couple of them on it. Here's footage of two of the games in action, courtesy of YouTube user MadLittlePixel:

By the way, several of these micro-cabinets have other games hidden inside them... generally, these hidden titles can be revealed by bridging two connectors on the PCB before powering up the system, or if you're feeling especially adventurous, soldering in switches. That Joust cabinet can also play Defender (actually, HAL's pared down port of Stargate) if you know the trick.