Jr. Pac-Man (Atari 2600)

[diamondlancer]

This game was so hard...but I played it on easy mode (one teddy bear) just to hear the intro musics for the later stages. :)

[akeldama931]

so pac-man and ms. pacman mated to make him? how'd that work out?

[silenceofthehills]

What the first Pac Man could have been on 2600... : (

[edzzzwin]

Jr. Pac-Man rules on the Commodore 64 and it's hard as hell.

[ymarichal]

how did you use the effect from 00:00 to 00:04?

[EastCoastDude99]

Jr. Pack Man was one of the better 2600 games I thought and it was hard as hell.

[Daviljoe193]

This very easly tops the origional Pac-Man for the Atari 2600. Am I right?

[supermark64]

good game

[dejon71]

aww dammit....I never knew this came out for the 2600!!! I missed out.

[xMazingerZ]

Calvaire! Il ne faut pas être daltonien pour jouer à ce jeu

[97channel]

I've always been inclined to defend the 2600 Pac-Man conversion, on the basis that i believed that they achieved all they could with limitations of the system. But seeing this, it's obvious how much better it could have been. This is not a huge step down from the quality of the arcade original Pac-Man.

[SergeantLuke]

I find it ironic that the original Pac-Man, which is very simple, had a terrible Atari port, whereas the complicated Jr. Pac-Man had a very accurate port.

[pardyhardly]

@SergeantLuke I read that the original Atari Pac-Man was actually a prototype that was rush released because they wanted the game out by Christmas.

[victorbarovsky]

Wow. This is a great conversion.

[harleykman]

I should add that "sprite flicker" is a common problem across all 8-bit consoles and computers

.

There's sprite flicker on my Commodore 64, on the NES, on the Sega Master System, and so on. It's inevitable. It you've only got 4-8 sprites and have to draw more enemies than that, you will get sprite multiplexing and flicker

.

One of the "fixes" on the new Atari 7800 ProSystem was to give it 128 sprites, and therefore eliminate flicker. Too bad the system flopped.

[KartKing4ever]

i see three problems, the ghosts blink, the map is WAY to big, and the colors are WAY to dark

[harleykman]

@KartKing4ever The ghost blink because the Atari only has ONE sprite available to draw all 4 of them (plus the fruit)

.

The map is no bigger than the map in the arcade. In fact it's identical, except oriented up-down instead of left-right

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The colors are bright and clear on an actual screen. In this video they are not due to poor camera work

.

Really Jr. PacMan is 99% true to the arcade. Very good port.

[FelixMeow32]

I actually had this game and played the hell out of it when i had my atari....I was really good at it...I usually got to at least the 12th board...I remember those little teddy bear things,1 teddy bear meant 1 ghost, 2 for 2 ghosts, 3 for 3 ghosts......this brings back so many memories...why wasn't a newer version of this ever released??....

[dylstew]

much nbetter then the crappy pac-man and ms pac man

[funkmike]

Why in the hell didn't Atari just develop and release this one first?? It could have saved them a ton of grief. They made stupid decisions in the 80's.

[SmokePropaganda]

yeah atari made quite a few bad decisions once Nolan Bushnell left. Many of those bad decisions led to the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 Such as waiting too long to release the 7800, and not supporting the Atari computers as much as they should have.

Jr Pacman for the 2600 is an awesome game and redeemed the travesty of the first pacman on the 2600.

[harleykman]

@funkmike The technology to create this game did not exist in 1982. The engineers had not learned how to do bank-switching yet, and were limited to just 2K of space

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Plus even if they had known how to do a 16K game like Jr. Pac-Man, the memory was too costly in the early 80s. Atari didn't want to release a $100 Pacman cartridge in 1982. So instead they released a smaller variant with limited space.

[rocksoliddude1]

this version looks pretty good, but ghosts are glitchy

[sanjouindacapo]

This is an awesome port, even better than Ms. Pacman! It's truely amazing how much care they put into a game like this with all the limits presented by the Atari 2600.

[specialT0k3n]

the ghost seem like they are 2x faster than jr. pacman, and seems that the red one was pretty wise

[YamiGekusu]

I knew I should have bought this version of Jr. Pac-Man when I saw it at a flea market last weekend D:

[Jed49er]

This just proves that they were incredibly lazy with the first Pac-Man....even Ms. Pac-Man pales to this; I gotta find it!

[WobDawg509]

its funny how the atari pacmans are horizontil while the arcade versions are vertical. Why is that?

[progrocker69]

Limitations on the 2600's video capability and scrolling, mostly.

Still, I would have to argue that a 90-degree turn to the side is a small price to pay for a conversion which, given the massive hardware limitations, is a beautiful port of a great game.

[progrocker69]

I was an Atari 2600 addict in the early to mid 80s. I used to go to every store in town, looking for fire sale bargains on these games after the 1983 video game crash. And out of all the carts I picked up for as little as $5 each I never saw this one *once*.

Now that I have played it on Stella, though, I must admit it is a BRILLIANT port. The difficulty is high and the game is as faithfully translated as that old console could ever manage.

Just wish I found it 25 years ago. =(

[kamreiniermak]

I don't see how you'd think this game is a masterpiece. But it's better than the Atari Pacmans. The only reason I'd search for this or any other Atari game is because it might(MIGHT) be worth a fortune later on.

[progrocker69]

It is an extremely faithful and challenging adaptation of an arcade game, done on a very primitive and simple console. I consider it to be among the best games ever released for the 2600. Trust me, compared to a lot of the games on this system Jr. Pac Man really IS a "masterpiece".

[kamreiniermak]

Well if you compare it to other games on the Atari you can say that. The ghosts look almost normal

[Rlotpir1972]

Never had this program. At the time, I was concentrating in middle school.

[lordbemylight]

lol at 4:14

[SlimTwisted]

You know, all factors considered, this was worlds better than the first pac-man for the 2600 (which I played daily).

[icecubeclock]

i noticed in this one (like Pac-Man and unlike Mrs.Pac-Man) The ghosts seem to flash around.

[ioport]

I love this game. It's one of my favorites on the 2600, but it's way too friggin HARD.

[MrSaturn33]

If only this had been Pac-Man 2600...Then everyone would've loved it.

[notyoursavior78]

This was my favorite Pacman for the Atari, I loved this one.

[thejunkman]

With 4 ghosts this game was WAY too hard! I love the scrolling screen and graphics! One of my all time favorite games.

[ArmoredPanther]

I still recall this and I always thought the graphics were just awful back then, but still thank you for the memories.

[hikekura]

jr. Pac-Man =3

[WCWite]

I heard this is the best Pac Man game on 2600?

[deanpook]

Technically superior in terms of graphics and speed compared to other 2600 Pac-Man variants.....maybe a little too fast!

[NightSprinter]

Yes, but it featured far more compared to the others. You even have intermission music, despite no actual intermissions. It was quite the accomplishment for the 2600.

[NightSprinter]

I just remembered that it also has the original maze layouts, just rotated 90 degrees in one direction.. plus the music and sound effects are surprisingly accurate in comparison to the arcade machine (given the limitations of the system).

[harleykman]

@deanpook It's not any faster than the arcade version. If you're a good gamer, you should be able to master the speed of arcade games.

[edzzzwin]

@deanpook: I like Ms. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 console as well.