"Definitely a good port..."

Intro Thingy (insert Pac-man music here)

Yes, even though I gave the Atari port of the original Pac-man a perfect ten, Even I can agree that Ms. Pac-man is a much better Arcade-to-Atari conversion. I'll go into more detail throughout the review, but for me the most noticeable change was the music and sound, which were much more faithful to the Arcade version than was the Atari port of Pac-Man, although I still feel that game has some of the most memorable sound in video gaming history. But again I'm digressing. Let's get down to business, shall we?

Control wise, this game is extremely simple. You move our round heroine through the mazes with the joystick and, as she finds them, she'll automatically scarf up those tasty food dots and power pills. This means that you will use the red button extremely rarely if at all (I'm not even sure it has a function in the game). Eating a power pill results in invincible Ms. Pac-man, who can scare those pesky ghosts to...death? Well, obviously not since they do come back as annoying as ever -- not to mention the fact that they're already dead. But anyway I was talking about the control here. The joystick is the only thing you use to play the game.

As for gameplay I touched on it a bit a moment ago. You run through the mazes, eating the dots and avoiding the ghosts until you can get a power pill, at which point you can send those ghosts packing. Of the ghosts there are four, Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Sue (are those their official names?), each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Each time you complete a level, these four become faster and more difficult to avoid, so you'll have to be ready.

Now for the sound. As I mentioned earlier they did bring back the Arcade theme, and I must say it's very well-done given the hardware. The sound effects, too, sound more true to the Arcade. All in all they did a good job with it. The only one I wasn't as impressed with was the sound for when you die, which was actually sort of a little tune here whereas in the Arcade it was just a...well...can't really describe it 'cuz I'm not that great with making words from game sounds.

Overall, I feel this game is well worth the effort of finding it. I found it on a web site I recently discovered and decided not to pass up the opportunity. I'm quite glad I did. So if you can, meaning you have an Atari and...all right an Emulator if you must, you should definitely at least give this game a go.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/05