Jr. Pac-Man was impressive

[KAZ]

I just got Jr. Pac-Man in the mail and played it about 5 minutes ago on a real Atari. It is unbelievably good. I completely forgot I was playing an Atari 2600, and the game just sucked me in. This game definitely shows off the possible capabilities of the Atari 2600 big time. Is it really a 128k game? Just when I thought this system could not amaze me any more...

a truly special console! Games like Pitfall! and River Raid are intensely fun, but this Jr. Pac-Man has some serious replay value on the 2600.

 

Just my opinion

[bcprs1]

Jr Pac-Man is definately a very addicitive game. The speed blows you away at first, but you eventually get used to it. I just love the strategy you have need to use in this version compared to pac-man and ms. pac-man.

The real trick in this game is to try to get through all 8 levels. It is very hard and I have yet to do it. The furthest I have gottent to is the 8th level. The toughest thing to do is get by 6th maze (the train). That is one of the hardest mazes in any pac-man game.

[Gregory DG]

The ROM image for Jr. Pac-Man is 16K. The largest "single" game appears to be Fatal Run at 32K. (I say "single" because the 32-in-1 is 64K)

[PeeknPoke]

Jr. Pacman is indeed great but very hard.

 

Lee

[Cybergoth]

Hi Greg!

 

The ROM image for Jr. Pac-Man is 16K. The largest "single" game appears to be Fatal Run at 32K. (I say "single" because the 32-in-1 is 64K)

 

Marble Craze is 32K, too

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Mister VCS]

I disagree. I never liked Jr. Pac-Man. The game is too fast and nearly

unplayable. The graphic is nothing special (no title-screen or gimmicks).

Atari made better games in 1984, it is just another (boring) Pac-Man.

Play Ms. Pac-Man instead of the Jr.

 

Mister VCS

[Goochman]

Wow, scrollable playfield with objects moving everywhere and multiple mazes dont impress you for a 2600 game? Hmmmmmmmm, maybe we should take a timewarp back to when this was released!

Against more advanced consoles, yeah its a bit shakey but for the 2600 impressive!

[lonesome_pa]

I find it very graphic, espically for a 2600. Even it's replay value is very good.

[Mister VCS]

Goochman: The most 2600 games (beginning in the 80ies) have decent

scrolling, the 2600 could handle scrolling better than a Colecovision.

Jr. Pac was programmed in 1984 - the same year Crystal Castles, Millipede, Stargate, Track and Field were released. Short: many more

advanced games. In 1984 Atari-programmers knew all programming-tricks, and compared to this games Jr. Pac is a big dissapointment!

[Chris++]

What could they have added? Guns? Spaceships? Remember that this was an arcade translation. I can't think of a single way in which Jr. Pac-Man could possibly be better on ol' Stella. They even got all the mazes in there! It's my favorite Pac-daptation on any home system, except maybe the incredible 7800 rendition of Ms. Pac-Man.

 

I agree that Millipede's incredibly good as well. Even with its square mushrooms, it beats the 8-bit version! Crystal Castles for the 2600, however, is terrible. Trying to play it gives me that Atari-sick feeling that Scott mentioned last week.

 

CF

[bcprs1]

I also don't know what else you could do to make Jr Pac-man better. This game ROCKS!!!!

I also love the exploding power pellets. It is very scary when the toy is "bouncing" around the screen and then the sound effect stops. You know your screwed because you just lost a power pellet.

[Mister VCS]

The scrolling is not a improvment with this Pac-Man variaton. The speed and the scrolling made this game nearly unplayable and frustrating, and why isn´t there a title screen or an intermission? Jr. Pac is just a rushed game. It wasn't released by Warner Atari, because they knew there was no market for another Pac. It was released by Tramiel-Atari because they

needed some new stuff.Look at Solaris, Crystal Castles, Radar Lock and

you see what you could do with a 2600!

[KAZ]

This debate is wonderful. When playing Jr. Pac-Man on the real Atari, with my genesis controller, I have a really hard time moving UP when I play the game. I wonder if it is the game or the controller. It will move up, but it doesn't feel right.

 

The difficulty is just incredible, and I LIKE it that way. After a while those ghosts simply want you dead no matter what it takes, and they all come barrelling towards you.

 

Nothing anyone could say about other games made in 1984 would change the fact that last night I was having an awesomely fun time with the game. Knowing full well the "limitations" of the console, this just blew my mind. That's all I can say about it.

[Nostalgic]

Part of what may make Jr. Pac-Man for the 2600 seem so difficult is that its difficulty approaches that of the arcade game.

 

Consider the various arcade ports that were done for the 2600. Some of them, like Defender, are much easier than their arcade counterparts, primarily because you couldn't have nearly as many enemies to contend with at one time. (Though having a joystick made Defender a lot easier to play...)

 

I find that with Ms. Pac-Man I can regularly get past the first banana board, but not so with the arcade game (unless the super-speed option is active). With Jr. Pac-Man, I'd say the challenge is closer.

 

Plus, consider the nature of Jr. Pac-Man. There's no tunnels, which are a commonly used escape route in its predecessors. There's many more dots to be eaten to clear a level. The mazes are also difficult because there's many long straight paths and narrow curves with very few ways out.

 

At least it's not Baby Pac-Man. That's nearly impossible to play well...

 

Anyhow, I find Jr. Pac-Man to be fun, challenging, and technically very impressive. It's one of my more frequently played games.