Pac-Man

"Not all it's cracked up to be"

THE game...or it was? The original version of Pac-Man was an amazing hit that millions of people in the United States fell in love with. This port, however, wasn't as great. Being an Atari 2600 game, it lost a lot of it innovative features that were provided on the arcade version.

In Pac-Man you control a yellow circle with a mouth and eyes called Pac-Man. The object is to move Pac-Man through a series of complicated mazes trying to obtain all of the pellets in the maze. There are pellets all through the maze in every nook and cranny. To complete a level you have to eat all of the pellets.

It couldn't be that simple could it? No, of course not. In your way are four ghosts that will try to eat you by touching you. In this version of the game all of the ghosts have exactly the same personality as the other. Since Pac-Man has no defense, he has four larger pellets per level to use. These pellets are scattered throughout a level. Upon eating a large pellet, Pac-Man gains the ability to eat his ghostly foes without getting hurt. The ghosts will turn a separate color when Pac-Man eats a large pellet, and when they are about to turn back to normal, they will start blinking. During this time when Pac-Man can eat the ghosts, the ghosts will start running away from Pac-Man but Pac-Man can easily outrun them.

Graphics
When this game was ported to the Atari 2600, it lost a lot of its good graphics. It doesn't have the cool dark colors that the original has, but a blue and white color scheme throughout the whole game. The ghosts are all one color and have lost their personalities. There are no fruits in this game, but they were replaced with a box that will come around every once in a while. The best part of the graphics would have to be when Pac-Man comes in contact with a ghost. He will open his mouth wide until there is none of him left. This is pretty impressive for an Atari 2600 game. I was a little disappointed with the graphics, but I have to consider this is an Atari 2600 game.

Sound
I love the music. There isn't much while playing the game but at the beginning of each level, you hear the classic Pac-Man level tune. I love that tune. The sound effects aren't horrible but not that great. The thing that annoys me the most is the sound of when Pac-Man eats a pellet, there will be a small noise. He will do this EVERY time he gets a pellet, and it does get annoying fast. There is also the “filling-up” noise as I call it when Pac-Man eats a big pellet, which actually sounds pretty cool. Besides that there really is no other music or sounds.

Game Play
I can't complain about this. It is just about the same as the original. It is quite fun but unfortunately, there was no different personalities for the different ghosts. The other thing that I didn't like with the game play was that every level was exactly the same. Unlike in the original, there was no different designs or colors. This gets very boring after a while and a little too easy to find fool-proof strategies. The controls are very good. They are easy to master considering you only have to move Pac-man around.

Replay Value
Not much here. After a short while, the games gets old. Fast. Since every level is exactly the same, there are no surprises and gets just too easy to enjoy. This may have been said to be a classic, but to me it just didn't cut it. I hardly ever play this game and even when I was a kid I was bored by it. If you are a big fan of Pac-Man this game has good replay value, but not the best choice for this system.

Overall
I didn't really like this game. It was one of those early Atari ports, but one of the few that wasn't that good. It was missing a lot of things from the original that just took a chunk out of the score, but this game will still have a part in my heart. As I got more games I played this game less and less. Atari should have stayed out of a more advanced time that Pac-Man gave to us and made some original games instead of ports that were too high quality for that time.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/30/06