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This is Atari's version of the original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600. It only bears passing resemblance to the arcade version. 3 of the ghosts are the same color (the 4th is a peach color and might be the one who's supposed to be Blinky). Pac-Man isn't round in this game. Pac-Man has an eye in this version (okay, maybe that could be considered an improvement since he has eyes in some of the later games, but still). Pac-Man only faces left or right in this game. In fact, I recently noticed that he faces right any time he eats a ghost, even if he was going left to get to the ghost! The dots are only worth 1 point each. In fact, the point value of just about everything is 1/10 of what it is in the arcade version. Couldn't Atari be bothered to put a 0 at the end of the score? The fruit has been replaced with a rectangular thing that manual claims is a vitamin. The vitamin appears at random, rather than twice per level based on the number of dots eaten. The vitamin is worth 100 points (equivalent to 1000 in any other version of Pac-Man) no matter what level you're in. The sound is terrible. The tunnel is vertical. The maze is nothing like the one in the arcade version. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 1. |
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This version of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 is much better. It's actually a hack of the Atari 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man. The maze is much closer to the one in the arcade version. Pac-Man is much closer to being round and his offending eye is gone. Each ghost is a different color (even if they aren't the right colors). The fruit is the fruit from the arcade version and appears when it should. The sound is much closer to the sound from the arcade version. While not perfect, this is a vast improvement over Atari's non-effort to bring Pac-Man to the Atari 2600. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 6. |
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Atari certainly did a better job with Ms. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 than they did on Pac-Man. It's not the best version but they did put forth an effort to make this somewhat like the arcade version. It has similar mazes to the ones in the arcade version. It has sound that's close to the arcade version. It has ghosts that are different colors. In fact, 2 of them are the right colors. I wonder why the makers of the better version of Pac-Man didn't keep the same colors when they hacked this to make that. They even let you play with anywhere from 1 to 4 ghosts, though it's not like it's hard enough that you need less than 4. The only glaring omission from this version is the ability to play a 2-player game. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 6. |
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This is by far the best Pac-Man game on the Atari 2600. Atari once again did their best to make this as close to the arcade version as possible on this system. As in the arcade version, the fruit makes the dots bigger and can destroy power pellets. The mazes scroll vertically, unlike the arcade version where they scroll horizontally (this is probably because it's easier to do vertical movement than horizontal movement on the Atari 2600). Still, they do seem to have made each maze with similar design elements to its arcade counterpart. Like with Ms. Pac-Man, you have the option of playing with anywhere from 1 to 4 ghosts. This comes in handy since this game is actually hard. Setting the number of ghosts allows you to play with the level of challenge that's right for you. In addition to being able to select the number of ghosts, you can start in any of the 7 mazes. Once again, they left out the 2 player game, though. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it an 8. |
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This is an awesome version of Ms. Pac-Man! It has everything the arcade version has and more! In addition to the 4 mazes from the arcade version, it has 32 other mazes! There are also other options, such as the Pac Booster that allows you to go fast by pressing a button; alternating 2-player mode; competetive and cooperative simultaneous 2-player modes in which one player controls Ms. Pac-Man and the other player controls Pac-Man; and difficulty, which controls the speed of the player(s) and the ghosts. I'm convinced that they could have made the graphics look just like the ones from the arcade if they wanted to but they opted for a shinier, almost semi-3d look. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it an 8. |
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This version may not look as good as the arcade version but for the most part the gameplay is the same. Also, while the music may not sound as good as in the arcade version, at least they included it all. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 7. |
This cartridge includes 4 Pac-Man games! The games on it are Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack and Pac-Man Arrangement. The version of Pac-Man that's on here has 2 ways to play: full screen and scroll. In full screen mode, you can see the whole maze at once but the graphics are smaller. In scroll mode, the graphics are just like the ones from the arcade version but you can't see the whole maze at once. Arcade patterns don't work in this version. Other than that it's a great handheld version of Pac-Man. The version of Pac-Mania in Pac-Man collection has the same graphics as the arcade version. It also has the same gameplay as the arcade version... IF YOU LIVE IN JAPAN. Having said that, living in America, I found it highly disappointing that they didn't make it like the American arcade version. You can't choose which maze to start in. You have to do each maze one more time before moving on the next one than you would have to in the arcade version. Someone at Namco dropped the ball on this one by not giving their American customers the American version of the game. Also, they didn't include all the music from the arcade version. The Pac-Man's Park music loops too soon. They didn't even include the music for The Jungly Steps; they just reused the music from Blocktown in The Jungly Steps. What had the potential to be a great handheld version of Pac-Mania turned out to be a disappointment due to Namco's oversight. When it comes to Pac-Attack, all the versions I've seen are the same, so see my review of Pac-Attack below to see what I think of it. Pac-Man Arrangement is a great inclusion in Pac-Man Collection since there are so few home versions of it. This is the only version of Pac-Man Arrangement that I've played. The main difference I know of between this version and the arcade version is that the arcade version shows the whole maze at once whereas this version scrolls. That's fine by me. Also, all of these games are single-player only.
Overall, on a scale from 1 to 10, I give Pac-Man Collection a 7.
Ms. Pac-Man (part of Namco Museum)
This version of Ms. Pac-Man has the same 2 modes as the version of Pac-Man in Pac-Man Collection: full screen and scroll mode. Again, full screen mode lets you see the whole maze at once with smaller graphics while scroll mode gives you graphics that are just like those in the arcade version while only showing part of the maze. The ghost movement seems slightly off in this version and there's no 2-player mode but other than that it's a great port of the arcade version.
On a scale from 1 to 10, I give this version of Ms. Pac-Man a 7.5.
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This is one of the strangest Pac-Man games ever. Your character in this game is Pac-Man; however, you don't control Pac-Man directly in this game. Instead, you fire rocks from a slingshot to get Pac-Man's attention or make other stuff happen. If you ask me, it's one of the first experiments in artificial stupidity. Who came up with that title, anyway? Pac-Man 2? There were already WAY more than 2 Pac-Man games when this game came out. Why would any platform game, let alone one with weird controls like this, get the honor of getting a title that makes it sound like the most direct sequel to the original Pac-Man? I've heard that the Japanese title is "Hello! Pac-Man" which is a much better title for this game. Still, even if they'd kept the Japanese title, that wouldn't make the game itself any better. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 5. |
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This is another bizarre Pac-game. At least in this one, you control Pac-Man, unlike in Pac-Man 2. That's really about all I can say that's positive about this game. In this game, you're Pac-Man when he was a kid. You're eating dots but not in a maze. That just doesn't work right somehow. I get frustrated by the water in Pac-Land but I still play that sometimes, which is more than I can say for this game, which I played once and then didn't play again. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 3. |
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Okay, I've heard that there's one version of this game that's different from the rest but not having seen that version I'll just tell you about the "standard" version. This is a Tetris-style game which has ghosts and Pac-Man in addition to the block pieces. The ghosts keep you from getting rows of blocks. You have to line up Pac-Man so that he'll eat as many ghosts as possible. Also, if Pac-Man eats a certain number of ghosts, a fairy appears. The fairy will destroy all the ghosts below her (up to a certain number of rows). In addition to the normal mode, there's also a puzzle mode. This game is unpopular but I like it. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give it a 7. |
