"Marilyn Monroe + Pac Man=Ms. Pac Man"

Does anyone else remember 1982? I do! Video games were all the rage. Pimply faced teenagers would line up quarters on those games of old waiting for a crack at the high score. Us little guys usually had to wait for a break in the action to sneak in and play! Ms. Pac-Man was amongst the most sought after games at that time. For those of you born after 1977, Pacman was perhaps the biggest thing to ever happen to teenagers. The sequel (Ms. Pac Man) was almost as big, though it was essentially the same game!
On the home systems, the Pac-Man games were always off. The Atari 2600 version was terrible. Other versions always had something missing. Ms Pac Man for the NES was one of the first games to really feel like its arcade counterpart. What you did was munch dots and avoid ghosts, until you ate a power pellet which made you able to eat the bodies of the ghosts, leaving them a helpless pair of eyes until they return to the ghost regeneration center. Simple, huh? Fun? Yes!! Ms Pac Man featured new cut scenes and new fruit to eat; and that was about it-- Still the NES version is faithful to the arcade and a rare find nowadays!
(Does anyone remember the art on the side of the game? Ms Pac man with a bow on her head and go-go boots!)

Graphics=5.0 Very very simple. You run through mazes that are essentially the same, with the same looking ghosts, and same power pellets. The only things that change are the cut scenes and the fruit you can eat. Nothing amazing but GRAPHICS DOTH NOT A GAME MAKE!

Gameplay=9.3 Simple and brilliant! You control your little pac lady around the screen by using your mere D-pad. No buttons, nothing fancy, just solid gameplay! Sometimes the simple things are the greatest pleasures in life!

Sound=5.0 Wakka wakka wakka! Ms Pac Man only has the famous little diddy before starting each level and the ''sad sack'' sounding Wooooooo dupe dupe! when you die! Oh yes and the little sound when the scared ghosts are blue!(it must suck to be the blue ghost, he is ALWAYS blue-- haha!)

Story=? Who knows what Ms Pac Man's motivation is, but she eats dots. You got a problem with that?

Chellenge=9.0 Of course Ms. Pac Man is hard, because it is a high score game. It gets harder and harder until you can't do it anymore! I'd say that's a worthy Challenge!

Overall=8.4 It is simple, but great. Ms Pac Man was also responsible for getting females into the fray of gaming. A classic, this one is hard to find and one of the more expensive used titles! Pick it up anyway! It's Fun!

*BRU'S MUST GET OMETER*=9 A true classic game, vintage fun! Buy it TODAYYYYYY!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/00, Updated 02/14/00