Pac-Man

".... this isn't pac-man...."

The Atari 2600, a rare find nowadays, especially since many retrieve their old system from the attic or the back of their closet only to find it not working. I myself have a friend who has an Atari 2600 that is in perfect condition, once he told me this, I frantically raced threw his collection of old games til I stumbled on Pac-Man. Being an avid pac-man fan to this day, I couldn't believe my eyes, Pac-Man for the Atari in my hands! I popped it in almost immediately and took it out almost immediately, believing that somebody switched the labels on the cover of the game because this definitely was not pac-man.

Gameplay: 1/10 - I consider myself to be an expert of sorts with Pac-Man, sure my score isn't close to the 30 year-old weirdos who score 700,000 each time they pop in a quarter and later go home, to their mom's house, to their room filled with Brittney Spears posters to contemplate their life long dream of obtaining a girlfriend, but I know the game in and out and can give the people who watch me play a decent show. The exception is when they watch me play the Atari 2600 version. This is so because the mazes are so poorly designed that you're almost guaranteed to lose a life on every level. Those crappy mazes on the back of kid's menu's at Denny's come to mind. With so many straight aways, you're better off just not even looking at the ghosts, because you already know you'll get nabbed. You're better off still if you don't play this game in the first place.

Graphics: 1/10 - Much of the strategy in Pac-Man is knowing how each ghost, distinguished by their colors, moves across the maze. The only problem with the Atari version is that the black and white graphics can't provide this very basic feature. At times you'll think you're looking at a newspaper. I'd rather look at Rollerball trading cards than look at this game again.

Sound: 3/10 - This is probably the best feature of the game because there is very little sound. The exception being the beeping of Pac-Man eating pellets.

Challenge: 10/10 - The poor controls and mazes will challenge you sanity more than anything else.

Final Thought: Anybody who rated this game with more than a 4 didn't actually play it, they probably played the arcade version thinking it was the same as the Atari one. I think I'm gonna need a power pellet.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/02, Updated 08/12/02