Ms. Pac-Man Atari 2600 Review

[sMCCarthyTV1]

Your ascent sure is entertaining

[Amisbro]

Question:

Are the black lines that come out of the left side of the screen supposed to be there or was there a problem with the emulator because i didn't see those in the Pac-Man review?

Other than that...good review

[spider486]

This is a great version, it was hella better than the original shitty Pac-Man

[yoshidude01]

why dont they just call it PAC-WOMAN!

[km9OOO]

@yoshidude01 Well, at least they didn't call it "Mrs Pac-Man." And this was back in the early 80s. Ever years after that we still called our married teachers "Mrs."

[247xReviews]

I Like The First One Better.I Love Bad Graphics

[KurtKokaine1]

@247xReviews you must obviously love bad gameplay as well.

[genesislordofdarknes]

This is how pacman should have been.

[puccaperson]

pretzels were in the original game!

[rbrbran277]

"Dat shure blends in wiff all da fruit"

[gamegod9000]

I love your sense of humor. It really keeps me interested in your videos. But what I really like, is simply how you can give old games a chance. Even I, an extreme gamer, would most likely shun at least 1 game if not more on the Atari. After your reviews, I was able to like the Atari as much as the NES.

One more thing: I know you would have to get it illegally to play it in English, but could you do a review on the original Mother for NES? Or Earthbound for the SNES? Or Mother 3 for GBA?

[mlwy45]

"get the fruit! get the fruit!"

"I don't wanna get the fruit!"

[MattTheSaiyan]

It's those little touches that really make this version of "Ms Pac-Man" special. You can really tell they were trying to make up with the 2600 version of "Pac-Man" (which is not that terrible as a game though quite bland, but fails to be anything like it's arcade counterpart).

[Steambull1]

Aqualung should've mentioned that only the 4th difficulty makes the red super ghost appear - he's faster than the others and a real challenge to deal with. I think that this is my favorite Pac-Man game. I like the fact that the mazes in this one are wide horizontally instead of vertically like in the Arcade Pac-Man games.

[EpicNachoProductions]

vanilla is not bland >:O

[highwaysonyfan87]

pac-man for the atari 2600 didn't suck balls. It was decent. people just expected too much from it

[IMZEECATMAN]

i dont see why everyone hates pac-man... it was the start of a videogame history, just like mario

[StSubZero]

@IMZEECATMAN It's not that people hate Pac-Man, they just hate the Atari 2600 version.

[IMZEECATMAN]

@StSubZero yeah i get that, but my question was, why? it wasn't the worse game in the world...

[StSubZero]

@IMZEECATMAN True.

[Barnstormer1969]

Your reviews of these old games rock. I used to play these games when I was a kid. I like how you comment on these games in the context of when they were released instead of judging them based on today's standards.

[pbloo574]

This is what Pac Man on the 2600 should have been.

[ILoveScratchBattles]

In this 2600, they all appear at the same time.

[mariomario678910]

ms pacman to me better then pacman worse then jr.pacman

[Hispanic00b]

what's the name of the soundtrack?

[dreamcastII]

This is a good review. You get to the point fast. What machine is doing the Aqualung music ?

[Delmoko]

Banana board rocks.

[megaman1791]

i think pretzels are included because they are so awesome that they should be a fruit.

[edsucksfredrocks]

I know I'm going to get some nasty replies about my comment, but I actually liked Pac-Man for the Atari 2600. I like it mainly because I don't care about graphics or sprites.

[kurisux]

Eh, Pac Man on 2600 is one of those "trendy to flame" games like ET. PacMan is only bad at being, well, PacMan. Its the same gameplay, but with the maze being totally wrong, it just killed it as an "arcade port."

It is fun, and unique, but is simply not accurate to the AC game. People really should try to enjoy it though, as on its own its pretty nice. A little ugly, but nice.

[polaris1966]

@edsucksfredrocks Pacman for the 2600 was a good game overall, IF you don't directly compare it to it's arcade counterpart. Frye made this game, and he wanted more "bit space" to make it better, but Atari refused to allow him the extra room. Wasn't entirely his fault then, but many people blame Todd Frye for his "trainwreck" version of Pacman because he didn't like Pacman in general!

[Luigi84289]

ms pacman = awesomeness. Pacman = pile of incoherent shit.

[WatchVenusSpa]

Awesome soundtrack!!!

[retrowens]

Ms. Pac-Man indeed rocks for 2600, but Jr. Pac-Man is the best Pac-Man title for the system, and the most challenging. It's an A+ game

[neogeon]

I don't know why they couldn't make it dots instead of dashes, that's just stupid.

[kurisux]

Limitations to the way the "Playfield" graphic works: it stretches, so it always ends up being wider than it is tall: hence, the "dots" of the maze end up being dashes.

[NightSprinter]

@kurisux Not just that, but if I remember reading some commentary on the AtariAge boards for the making of another game, the maze seems to be symmetric due to hardware limitations. I also do like the rather well-done use of flicker to make the ghosts more visible.

[kurisux]

Well, one can make the 2600 produce asymmetrical playfield graphics simply enough, as Activision did this often, but that is unrelated to the comment at hand: the issue I am talking about is how people say the power pellets were bricks: I was explaining to them that it is a side effect of the "stretching" of the graphics on the system as a whole.

[Da1shocker]

This game looks pretty good for the 2600 Pacman was terrible.

[spacespace2]

i thought this game was good! gave me the skills i have today in video games :)

[duchovny2]

The "flashing" was due to only allowing two moving objects on screen at one time, so they had to "move" objects by showing on screen, then off screen, then on screen, thus the flashing effect. It's what we had back then, and I was grateful for it. Video gaming in its infancy!

[neogeon]

OK Kranky Kong!

(Donkey Kong Country reference)

[28SNaKeS]

@duchovny2 The "flashing" in the Pac Man for the 2600 was perfectly fine. It made the ghosts appear transparent :D

[TheFareWell21]

Preztels!

[wingnut4427]

Download Stella X & then look for the roms. There is a better version of pac-man that came out in 2000. It was a hack of Ms. Pac-man But is a hell of alot better. If you still love playing those old games. Can't tell you how to get the roms. But I know a few of you out there know how. :P

[toegara]

K... tell me do you like atari more or nes

[raccoonpolice1337]

The ghosts still flash.......for no reason.

Not as much though, like they arent teleporting around

[asstreme2]

actually it was cause the atari only suported 2 moving sprites at a time. Pacman and one ghost. There can only be one ghost per frame.

[Psistarstormer]

i like your style of reviews they have humor to keep em good but they are informitave!

[SirOlrox]

You sound so tired of these atari rewiews, maybe you should go back to NES.

[AqualungGameReviews]

I still do NES reviews. I squeeze 2 atari reviews in between the NES ones. And I'm not tired of doing Atari games, they're actually much easier lol

[ruboneoff52]

Pretzel.....lol.

[saigokun]

Very good review.

[Noyjeetut]

Awesome man. Your knowledge on a lot of this stuff is so interesting that I'm sure it would entertain me even if every review was the same Pac-Man game on a different console. Good review. :D

[ser6Ijvolk]

How could a game back then cost a company millions? The plastic and just a bit of metal the cartridges are made from couldn't have cost so much, and I'm pretty sure they didn't pay game programmers anything close to six figures at the time...

[AqualungGameReviews]

There were over 5 million unsold Pac-Man carts which cost the company a huge amount of money. But more importantly the poor quality turned off a lot of consumers and started a swift decline in the game industry in general (E.T. is the other mainstream game to receive much of the blame for this)

[mikeferr107]

@AqualungGameReviews - Good answer!! 

[legoloony345]

@AqualungGameReviews speaking of E.T. when are you going tho review that SHI.T. game?

[sterlingsmith1969]

@AqualungGameReviews I recall the many walls of Pac Man carts and trying SO hard to like the original. I remember distinctly the negative impact this had for the 2600 and gaming in general. I also believe that gaming in general was no longer in the "honeymoon" era and gamers simply wanted more--unfortunately technology couldn't deliver.

[ChibiFighter]

Fantastic review Aqualung Ah Ms Pac-Man so addicting.

[ser6Ijvolk]

Do you think he really should? Megaman 2 is the best it got.

[METALIST1989]

Even though MM2 is the best of the series and probably the best of all time (yet, since MM9 is on the way, we have a hope) other megaman games are still great. Even Megaman X series, I don't care how much people criticize them, I still like Megaman X!

[JonnyD108]

Great review. Glad to see a good straight-to-the-point retro reviewer. I'm tired of all those loud, AVGN copiers. Keep the review coming Aqualung!

[bobbytomorow]

Nice one.

I still play Ms Pac Man whenever I see one in an old bar or pool hall. Timeless classic.

[KiNPiN1835]

looks like someone is stuck in the past.

[Swartzeagle83]

Always a good review, good to see someone showing the Atari some love.

[tlynn327]

Mis. Pac man was a big step up from Pac Man.

[boomstick545]

I remember that version not being too bad

[thegroupishere]

great review

[mintgg]

Cool