Pac-Man (Atari 2600) (How To Beat Home Video Games 1)

[youwayo]

what kind of crack was this guy smoking.

[sonic8005]

"The next board sets up automatically..."

.... then it takes like three or so seconds. XD

[mikeberserkr]

i want even born yet

[genesislordofdarknes]

At least the 2600 version of Ms Pacman wasn't too bad

[drkraid]

jaysus look at dem ghosts flicker

[jcgamer107]

Wow the version for 5200 was so much better.

[DirtMcGurt024]

NOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo­oooooo

[DrSuperMarioMan6464]

The next level starts automatically? Oh good! I hate those games where you have to manually start each level!

[Rudyfourth]

This is how video games started in the late 70s!

[abcpat100]

lol now I wanna dig my 2600 outta my cloaset and play sum Pac Man

[TorpedoBill9]

you can make a shitty game look awsome!

[Bittergamer1886]

Even though this game looks like it's been hit with an ugly stick, I can't get enough of it. It's so... addicting, even if it does look and sound like crap. Hey, it's still Pac-Man.

[eVITORIOe]

unespecting that the pac-man dont turn up and down :(

[ineedmoney231]

im suprised the ghost's didnt like go crazy everywhere around the screen

[snakes3425]

Good game if not for one problem: YOU CAN'T SEE THE GHOSTS HALF THE TIME

[LordDumal]

pacman is the allegory for the american life

[electricmastro]

People, he's said BEST SELLING GAME, not BEST GAME!

[kurisux]

And the guy who made it did not like pac-man.

That would be like someone asking me to supervise the making of a Guitar Hero game: it would be so changed all the fans would hate it, haha.

[BeckTheBen]

where the fuck do you get your sources

[kurisux]

@BeckTheBen People connected to the old Atari corp, in some way, mostly. I could be totally wrong, but I go with the best sources of info I have.

As for sites in question, atariage has quite a few ex-game devs from those days on it. Nuff said I think.

Again, I could be totally wrong, but that would mean those coders are lying out their ass, and I kinda doubt that.

[baggedyman]

HAHA it is am American phenomenon because we like to eat and run so much... well, except for the running of course.

lol

[PikaChamp112]

@baggedyman A Winner is You my friend

[jediskunk67]

Pac Man is the the most popular game in the United States.

[adog262]

This game's graphics are waaaaaay less than the arcade version, but the gameplay was quite fun overall.

[lemonlad7]

What do they mean "one of the best-selling games"? Pac-man for the Atari 2600 was Atari's 2nd WORST selling game, behind E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial!

[owensed01]

lol wikipedia

[owensed01]

well it was a failed game but sold incredibly well i have nothing against it

it was pac man and well i seeee nothing wrong

[WiNsToN1956]

i hated this game i dont know why but dont like this game it bores me

[Anony1200]

If the Atari could only handle 2 or 3 moving sprites,than how in gott's name can games like Donkey Kong,Mario Bros,and Defender work with no flickering whatsoever?

[Anony1200]

Random fact:This is actually an early prototype of the game kicked out of the nest to get out in time for Christmas.That's why the ghosts blink,or in some versions,dissapear entirley.

But the sounds are shameful,even for the 2600...

[owensed01]

true dat but when i first played it i saw nothing wrong with it

[WobDawg509]

The graphics for pacman have gotten WAY better between the Atari 2600 and the Atari 5200

[ZacharyDuhamel]

wow the perfect arcade port

when i first saw footage i was like "this must be a mistake"

[clinch44]

POWER PILL?

[Blahguy300]

@clinch44

Those big dot things that turn ghosts blue when you eat them.

[Quinn5151]

BONK BONK BONK BONK BONK!!! ....... Just like the arcade right?

[wildsmiley]

The name is the selling point. The actual game: dogshit.

DONK DONK DONKDONK BOOP. This is awful sound effects even for the 2600.

[gocrazed1]

It was one of the best sellers because it was a scam for all gamers with half a brain.

[trystan877]

eat yes run not so much

[HoboBob24]

I wish this show came on G4 rewind or whatever it's called...

[wiifan135]

That was an awful port and they knew it! They just knew if they put pac man in the home into actuality they'd hit the jackpot. Dumb assholes.

[gamer64uk]

I know, but i have it for my 2600, and it is a good game to play, regardless of its faith to the arcade version.

[hardgayramen4ever]

americans like to eat, dunno about the running bit. The arcade version had dots, not dashes, what a crappy looking port, someone should have been shot for this.

[gamer64uk]

No, it was a good game. It was released on the 2600 about 25 years ago! Of course it wasn't going to look good, but man, it was a great game.

[hardgayramen4ever]

no, but this was not a good port, it even got heavily criticised back when it originally came out.

[TenguGuy]

....Am I not the only person who thinks this port is shit? Wow. Cool. I guess I don't have a very high standard for the Atari...

[clinch44]

that game was shitty piss poor

[TenguGuy]

Yeah, after a while I figured that out. =P

[HoboBob24]

Play the 5200 or 7800 version.

[kbrinks]

i had this game on atari and HATED eveything about it even at the time.. it doesn't feel like pacman at all

[Thebboss]

Ugh they replace waaka waaka with baamp baamp.

[itachi705]

"Pehaps because we Americans love to eat and run so much."

LOL! Eat, yeah. Run, no.

[ocfernan]

@itachi705 haha, that's a good point. but i know what the author meant. he meant "eat and run" as in having a quick lunch and getting back to work/class. that we DO do a lot of...even today.

[themangodess]

omg i can finally see what the guy looks like. I remember a How To Beat Home Video Games video of ET that was uploaded here.

[blicksflicks]

In 1985, I could play this version of Pac-Man over and over without losing a single man. I flipped it every time at 100,000. I could show anyone how to do it, too. :) It's a pretty easy game to flip, too. But, I loved it. The same day I flipped this version in 1985, my friend flipped Missle Command on the same console.

[NixonTech2071]

this is no doubt an ACTUALLY DIFFERENT

pac-man! That actually has originality.

[Talic3]

my dad has tht game!! the intro sound is kinda wierd.

[Onono6]

lol i do like to eat and rune thats why i have this game! it freakin rockz!

[D2Krazy]

I LOVE THE GAME! Only Down Side is the ghost flash :( BUT outher then That THIS GAME ROX!!

[Onono6]

pretty cool

[blicksflicks]

nufcdazzla, you only think it is bad, because you are only 23 years old. You don't realize how much sensational fun this version of Pac-man actually caused in the world. Graphics weren't like they are today. We didn't have Direct X 10 and anti-aliasing. None of that stuff. You must realize that for us, this was like X-Box 360. You just weren't alive back then. :)

[drunkdaddyo69x]

i could play this indefinatly on 1 game. notice u get 1 point per dot. i would play to 100k and it would go back to zero. then turn it off.

[Drakul777]

The adaptation of Pac-Man for Atari 2600 is the WORSE videogame ever!

Suck!

[balletman]

It could have been better, but considering the technology, not by much. Lots of folks were disappointed with the home version at the time too. As a 6 year old, I didn't mind a bit. The biggest problem with this game was that investors predicted Pac-man alone would net $250 million in sales (almost 8 times Atari's total annual sales at that point) which is one factor that lead the company to irresponsible spending and later bankruptcy.

[crazynintendoguy]

ET and action 52 is waaaaaay worse than this

[Orionsaint]

I love the way he's forced to change pac-man terminology. They're not dots anymore, oh no. now there dashes that pac-man eats lol! no fruits either. It's a vitamin he eats now lol!

[Orionsaint]

What's even more insulting is a year later the 2600 released a Mrs Pac-man port that was halfway decent. Mrs Pacman actually turned corners. Obviously a year later they had more time and learned how to trick the 2600 hardware into making a decent port.

[Orionsaint]

He could have at least mentioned it's one of the worst Arcade ports in history and crushed the dreams of millions of children in 1982. Instead he acts like the game is just like the Arcade.

[balletman]

While the graphics were better, the game engine on the arcade version of pac-man was seriously broken. The ghost movement wasn't random- they moved consistently and proportionately according to how you moved pac-man. hat made it possible to win every time by using the exact same movement pattern. The Atari version randomized the ghost movement.

[Kijinn]

That didn't seem to matter once you reached the maximum difficulty/speed level on the Atari version. From that point onward you could infinitely use the same pattern to win each "stage".

I seem to remember that the score did not flip at max, but just stayed at 99999...But that was over 20 years ago...I could be wrong. And I never touched the game again, after I knew how to "beat it".

[lkmetal1977]

Demons To Damonds was the best!

[speedy790]

lol we do like to eat and run!

[link458745]

this guys a fag

[lacorunya]

fuck u!!

[Goldbanjo14]

ezyrewards(dot)com/?id=181810

[MINESWEEP2k]

When I played Atari PacMan, I must have been about five or six. I found it to be the most frustrating as hell game to play. Now I play it, and it's not frustrating, but it's nothing compared to the arcade version.

-MINESWEEP

[0597534]

I have this game on my Atari 2600. I'm still playing with it...great time!!

[connor938]

That's true many times when you are watching a T.V. show and they are playing a video game you here sound effects from this game.

[georgegay4]

This game was truely terrible. I played it when i was little and remember being so jealous of my best mate who had a BBC B computer and had the equivalent game called snapper. Boy did he take the piss out of me.. Took me ages to save up for BBC B, Happy days...

[nttbeats]

i think this game has the most overused sounds for generic video game scenes in movies/tv. i love em

[mrwoods123]

That Pac-Man was horrible. And look at the scoreboard. 1 point per dash, 5 for a power pellet, and 20 for the first ghost. It should have been 10, 50, and 200. And look at the fruit. It's just a square box.

[dogeymon83]

That game looks like shite.

[laesperanzapaz]

the first few seconds of this vid is hilarious

[lacorunya]

yeah, the announcer seems so happy to bring everyone a "biggie" to that show.....how polite, how formal lol

[pgc4sean]

There was a pattern to this game (after a certain point when the ghost got faster). Just did the same pattern over and over again.

[pimanrules]

wait... did he say best selling? this was the game that triggered the video game crash!

[legend813]

No! That game was named E.T.

[pimanrules]

Both helped trigger it.

[ocfernan]

@pimanrules , it did,  because so many people returned it afterwards.

[papo112]

shit! i was maybe 6 years old

[chespirito427]

monsterbox, I think you got your words confused. It is SIMPLE not EASY.

[redmartian]

I remember waiting for this game to be released .. and when we were driving home from Sears I was praying to god that we wouldn't die in a car wreck. What a silly kid.. haha .. I played it for a long time and developed a pattern that I could use on any level. I remember I played one game for what seemed like hours and I just decided to turn it off .. it doesn't get much harder. The 5200 version was better, but the analogue joysticks kill it.

[jestearns]

One of the 2600's poorest efforts, as demonstrated by the substantial improvements in Ms. Pac-Man. To think they could have likewise released a better Pac-Man at that time...

[pf91rodman]

wow classic pac-man

[Topper2001]

Yeah... eat and run! ;-)

[Death1121]

I also remember this awful game when I was little. The horrible graphics gave me nightmares. Then I discovered the wonders which was the NES. Graphics DO matter.

[monsterbox4]

i never knew tat sum1 would actuly release a walkthrough type thing for the easyiest game in the world

[polaris1966]

Well, it was all we had for conversions back in the 80's for the 2600. Despite how "aweful" the game was, it sold alot of units (and didn't end up in a landfill, like E.T. did). It's more fun now than it was then. lol

[MavsFan1982]

UGH! I played this game when I was little, and boy did it SUCK!

[Carlitonsp]

Terrible Game, this video never should have existed.

[lifelesslink]

that is the ugliest game i have ever seen in my whole life

[Panpizza15]

yuck... I never played that version of that game but it makes me want to wash myself

[jdmikeg4]

this was the first video game i ever played in my life. must have been 5 years old...thanks for the post!

[DGSE]

i had this game on 2600 VCS Atari.

And i knew also the technics.

But what about Starmaster?

[hardgayramen4ever]

terrible port. Dashes? they're supposed to be dots, where's the fruit? why do the ghosts flicker so much? lame

[ronaldsf]

my mom loved this game. terrible maze though. i imagine i'd get tired going around each one of those squares over and over...

[intenselan]

LOL..I remember this. I thought the Atari 5200's Pac Man was far better.

[NotATube]

The version for the 5200 was basically the 400/800 version with some animated scenes between levels; and yeah, it was actually a very good conversion.

They later ported the enhanced 5200 version back to the 400/800. Basically, the 5200 *was* just an Atari 800 minus keyboard, but they changed the cart socket and external ports, made a couple of very minor changes to the OS. Stupid, contrived incompatibility.

[jackbox1971]

This was the biggest disapointment of the 2600 era. Terrible game. No variation, bad sound effects, no parity with the arcade... just shite. Ms. Pac was an improvement.

[dskandman]

very od americans

[russdamac]

This is before pac patterns. Pac patterns applied to the arcade version of pacman, which was a lot lore polished than this.

[NinjaGhostScorpion]

That game is proof that no good can come from greed. Atari didn't want to split profits with Namco, who created this game, so they made a pale imitation.

[queensplazasouth]

if that was the case, it wouldnt be called pac-man! the reason it's "bad" is due to the limitations of the 2600.

[TServo2049]

The reason it was so bad is not because of a desire to hog the full profits, or due to the limitations of the 2600. It was actually because of the fact that the game was rushed to market for the Christmas season. Apparently, programmer Tod Frye showed Atari a rough version of the game, and they simply chose to release that version instead of lose out on the potential Christmas sales.

[jakeharvey]

Not true. Search for "Hack 'Em", someone made an all new 2600 version of Pac Man a couple years ago that is vastly superior and very faithful to the original, even with the graphical limitations.

[balletman]

I'm going to look that up. Interesting, if true.

[ocfernan]

really? i thought bally-midway owned pac man at the time.

[buzzbuzz312]

We like to eat and run lol

[NotATube]

One out of two ain't bad ;-)

[THEWWE2K7]

lol.

[amiga2000]

Atari 2600 handheld running Ms. Pac-Man, Mr. Do!, Defender, ET, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v­=Sdg5fV_8w6U

[kramerthebird]

This guy sucks at video games

[Msdos4]

this game is beatable?

[commedore64]

he didnt know the pattern I guess you could do the same pattern over and over and never die.

[phantomdj]

bizarre