Pac-Man is the worst game!

[+LS650]

Utopia was pretty awesome for its day, too!

[Dauber]

1) Wasn't the "no black background" rule in place not to show off the color capability of the VCS but rather to prevent bleeding on a TV screen?? ah well...

 

2) When I was a little kid, the Atari 2600 Pac-Man was pretty much all I had (until Ms. Pac-Man came out). I was only at an arcade once a month (Aladdin's Castle at Lincoln Mall) and was given a dollar allowance for that place. I was happy I could play Pac-Man in SOME form that wasn't an LCD blippy screen or the noisy Coleco thingy. I recognized right away that the graphics and sound were virtually NOTHING like the arcade version, and I was a little disappointed, but I figured it was due to the limitations of the Atari 2600 itself AND the limitations of TV sets. (After all, the thought was that you couldn't get a vertically-oriented maze on a TV screen because of the aspect ratio.)

 

3) Speaking of the "improved" 2600 hacks...has anybody hacked Ms. Pac-Man to make THAT game resemble the arcade version more?? Like fix the mazes, make the maze changing frequency more accurate, make the prizes in the later levels 100% random (so that you didn't know what you were getting until it actually came out), etc.???

Edited March 26, 2010 by Dauber

[Cliff Friedel]

If we are bashing consoles now, then I think that the 5200 is a worthless pile of plastic!

 

I don't know, the Intellivision sucked pretty bad, if for nothing else, the disk controllers. I also hated the overuse of the overlays for things like Baseball. The only thing good about it was Treasures of Tarmin and the other D&D game.

I thought Sea Battle was pretty good, arcade and stradegy.

Actually, there were a lot of good ideas for games and they were implemented pretty well, but the playability from the pad is what made them suck. A lot of games required you to hit the numpad buttons and the side buttons on the pad almost simultaneously or repeatedly, which made your hands hurt. What didn't make sense to me is that the 5200 and colecovision seemed to follow suit with this dumb idea. Just made no sense to me. One or two buttons and a stick works for most games (except fighters in which 5-6 buttons is the norm). Even today with XBox and PS3, there are a lot of games that could work without the myriad of buttons. It almost seems like programmers feel compelled to use them even if they don't need to and that hurts the game sometimes. Anyway, that is why I can't stand intellivision, even if it had some cool games.

[NE146]

3) Speaking of the "improved" 2600 hacks...has anybody hacked Ms. Pac-Man to make THAT game resemble the arcade version more?? Like fix the mazes, make the maze changing frequency more accurate, make the prizes in the later levels 100% random (so that you didn't know what you were getting until it actually came out), etc.???

 

I've sort of suggested that in the past, but so far I don't think anyone's really done it The best so far I think is Nukeys "facelift" hack:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/146664-ms-pac-man-gets-a-facelift

[Herbarius]

It's funny how the stories of 2600 Pac-Man's creation circulate, with varying degrees of exaggeration. Afaik, all you can say for sure is it was 4KB, although the developer had wanted to work with 8KB, and the developement time was pretty short - while propably no exact numbers are known. However you read things like "developed in only 2 weeks" and "beta version/prototype" with the former being outright impossible (except maybe the programmer had worked day/night), the latter being a false rumor that has bee debunked for quite a while (I think).

 

Well it doesn't really strike me as such a bad game at all. I even play it every now and then on my 2600, the main reason being any more Arcade-faithful version of Pac-Man would take more time and/or effort to start up First I always played it in black/white mode, as I liked that "color scheme" more than the normal one, but in time that b/w display started to become boring, so I switched to color and now didn't find the colors that ugly anymore.

 

I also have presented the game to both my younger brother and a good friend of mine (seperately), both aren't very "into" retro-games, however they usually appreciate a fun game that I show them.

Well, I basically plugged the cartrige in, powered it up and said "Well, this is how Pac-Man looks on the Atari 2600". As that failed to produce any reaction I added "it's very much disliked by a lot of people for being an awful version of Pac-Man" or something like that.

Both of them didn't understand. Asked, "why is that? looks like Pac-Man to me." I then listed the differences, like the maze is completely different (with a reaction like "Yeah, big deal..."), the graphics are crappy ("well, it's an old console"), and so on. My brother even played it quite a lot for a couple of days.

Edited March 26, 2010 by Herbarius

[akator]

Both of them didn't understand. Asked, "why is that? looks like Pac-Man to me." I then listed the differences, like the maze is completely different (with a reaction like "Yeah, big deal..."), the graphics are crappy ("well, it's an old console"), and so on. My brother even played it quite a lot for a couple of days.

 

My brother said the same thing. In one discussion he said that all of the old games were fun but archaic, so comparing arcade Pac-man and 2600 Pac-man was like comparing a rock to a slightly different rock. He didn't understand why anyone gave a crap, or still does.

[SoulBlazer]

Tempest has a good writeup on the development of 2600 Pac-Man on his proto site: http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/pacman/pacman.htm

 

Taken from there:

 

"These questions are a bit hard to answer as no one even to this day has fessed up for the Pac-Man debacle. Programmer Tod Frye claims he had made a much better 8K version of Pac-Man, but Atari wouldn't spring for the extra memory so he was forced to strip it down to 4K. Atari management claims that no 8K version existed and that this was Tod's best effort. Fans blame Atari for rushing Pac-Man into production, and Tod for doing a lazy mans conversion that could have been much better even at 4K. Who's right? I think there's a little truth to each side."

 

I've always felt there's plenty of blame to go around with this sloppy port.

[Zoyx]

Todd Frye was going through a bitter divorce when he coded this game. This game became a metaphor of that terrible time for him. The flashing bland ghosts that represent the lawyers. If you caught them, they would just go back and regenerate and come at you some more. Pac-man's inability to look up or down showed how he was trapped in a linear world. Having only vitamins to eat instead of fruit, indicated how lousy he was eating since his wife moved out.

[GameGirl420]

Come to think, if I had a choice between playing the Atari 2600 Pacman and NES Pacman.....I'd totally choose the 2600 version.

 

 

The NES version sucks really bad. It makes the 2600 one look closer to the arcade lol,and that's not saying much. I would agree however that the 5200 version is way superior.

[bohoki]

Come to think, if I had a choice between playing the Atari 2600 Pacman and NES Pacman.....I'd totally choose the 2600 version.

 

 

The NES version sucks really bad. It makes the 2600 one look closer to the arcade lol,and that's not saying much. I would agree however that the 5200 version is way superior.

 

 

huh

 

 

i thought nes pacman was good but the world changed and simple games like that were seen as antiquated with the super games like smb,metroid,zelda out there

 

i too liked 2600 pacman i thought it was adequate given the 2600 limitations

 

the music dooo dee dooo dee is burned into my brain

 

i also loved superman the map was so complicated

 

et was crap though it just didn't have the zaz the movie deserved a flying bike game shooter would have been snaz

[GameGirl420]

I've played the NES Pacman already and personally I don't like it.

 

 

The Atari 5200 version is the best imo.I love how you can skip to the 'Key' levels and play super fast,love that game. Hoping someday someone can make a Pacman Plus hack out of that.

[Herbarius]

Come to think, if I had a choice between playing the Atari 2600 Pacman and NES Pacman.....I'd totally choose the 2600 version.

 

 

The NES version sucks really bad. It makes the 2600 one look closer to the arcade lol,and that's not saying much. I would agree however that the 5200 version is way superior.

 

 

huh

 

 

i thought nes pacman was good but the world changed and simple games like that were seen as antiquated with the super games like smb,metroid,zelda out there

 

I too have no complaints about the NES version of Pac-Man. However I only play it emulated on the GBA SP.

Edited March 27, 2010 by Herbarius

[NE146]

Yeah you guys are smoking crack. If the NES version of Pacman came out at the time 2600 Pacman came out, the entire video gaming world would've shat a collective brick

 

Sure, now our frames of reference are different and we know the patterns are changed, the maze dimensions are slightly off, etc. etc. etc. but those wouldn't have mattered back then. It would've just been seen as the most amazing home port ever done, and we'd all freak out at being able to play PAC-MAN at home

 

[Cliff Friedel]

Yeah you guys are smoking crack. If the NES version of Pacman came out at the time 2600 Pacman came out, the entire video gaming world would've shat a collective brick

 

Sure, now our frames of reference are different and we know the patterns are changed, the maze dimensions are slightly off, etc. etc. etc. but those wouldn't have mattered back then. It would've just been seen as the most amazing home port ever done, and we'd all freak out at being able to play PAC-MAN at home

 

I agree. Even with the differences in timeframe, the NES port of Pac-Man is a million times better than the 2600. We also know that a better port was possible on the 2600 as evidenced by A better Pac-Man, so you can't even blame technology for the failure. Truth is, Atari wanted it fast and it was rushed out. I think even Atari knew this, because the 5200 port really became THE port of the game. I still play the 5200/8-bit version of Pac-Man when I get a chance. It may not be as pretty as the NES, but it feels like Pac-Man more to me than everything but the machine itself. Just my opinion.

[Cliff Friedel]

Double Post.

Edited March 28, 2010 by Cliff Friedel

[tz101]

So, what is the "truest" home port of Pac Man? 5200, NES, or one of the NAMCO Museum compilations for PS2 or Gamecube?

[Zoyx]

So, what is the "truest" home port of Pac Man? 5200, NES, or one of the NAMCO Museum compilations for PS2 or Gamecube?

Ummm... Mame?

[GameGirl420]

I totally disagree with the above statements saying if the NES version came out during that time everyone would've "shat a collective brick".... I don't think so considering the 5200 version was already out by that time and imo, the 5200 version of Pacman completely blows away the NES version.

 

 

 

5200 Pacman >>>>>>>> NES Pacman.

 

 

Anyone who disagrees with that is surely smoking crack lol. I hate the NES version,but that's just my opinion.

[SoulBlazer]

So, what is the "truest" home port of Pac Man? 5200, NES, or one of the NAMCO Museum compilations for PS2 or Gamecube?

Ummm... Mame?

 

I'd say the XBox 360 version. It IS the arcade version, the same thing you'd play in MAME.

[NE146]

I totally disagree with the above statements saying if the NES version came out during that time everyone would've "shat a collective brick".... I don't think so considering the 5200 version was already out by that time and imo, the 5200 version of Pacman completely blows away the NES version.

 

Ermm.. I'm pretty darn sure the 5200 console itself wasn't out yet when 2600 Pacman was released. I had 2600 Pacman at release. I also had a 5200 (and 5200 Pacman at release). And they surely did not cross Correct me if I'm wrong. Granted the 8-bit version of Pacman was probably out at the time.. but that's a different story

 

I guess it's arguable which version (5200 vs NES) is better. I've played both to death. I have to say even though I had 5200 Pacman back in the day, and even back then there were things about it that I didn't like. 1) The slightest touch of the ghosts tails meant death (unlike the arcade where you could make it flutter on you). The dot-eating sound was totally wrong.. which is unforgiveable since the 8-bit versions of the exact same game have the "wacka-wacka" down pat. Also the maze just seemed wrong to me elongated horizontally like that. 5200 Ms. Pacman did a much better job. But yeah, it's all opinion.

[misspent_youth]

So, what is the "truest" home port of Pac Man? 5200, NES, or one of the NAMCO Museum compilations for PS2 or Gamecube?

Ummm... Mame?

 

I'd say the XBox 360 version. It IS the arcade version, the same thing you'd play in MAME.

 

I'm going with Opcode Games' Pac-Man Collection for ColecoVision. Pure perfection. Includes Pac-man and Ms. Pac-Man, about as perfect as you can get, and on almost 30 year old hardware.

[Longhorn Engineer]

Congratulations! You get +1 "I wanna be popular" points for parroting mindless statements that have been argued ad nauseum for the last 15 years on every classic gaming board known to man.

 

For the extra +5 bonus points please tell us how:

 

A. E.T. caused the gaming crash

B. Atari should have sold the NES when Nintendo offered it to them

C. The Jaguar was (or was not) a 64-Bit system.

 

+ 2K Monies if you can work some C-64 or Amiga bashing into your argument.

 

Tempest

 

Pacman for the VCS was the most worthless game ever created. Well almost as bad as ET causing the almost permanent end to the gaming industry. Yah that game was soooo bad Atari dumped millions of carts into the desert. Its true I saw a blurry picture on these forums, bigfoot was even there. Good thing Nintendo was there to bring gaming back to its former glory while Atari wasted its time on the 5200. Atari was so stuck up there bums that they even turned down Nintendo for the NES rights! To bad Nintendo didn't make any computers or Commodore would be so screwed. And everyone knows the Nintendo 64 was the first true 64bit system! It even says it in its name!

 

durp durp that good tempest

 

how much monies did i win?

 

:rolling:

Edited March 31, 2010 by Longhorn Engineer

[yell0w_lantern]

RISE!

 

We played Pac-man on the 2600 and it was okay. We never played a more arcade accurate version until we got a C-64 and by that time we weren't that excited about Pac-man anyway.

 

Interestingly, there was a MAME hack of Pac-man that made it like the 2600 port. Now THAT was a hoot - wish I could find it again...

[HollowPoint123]

If you compare it the arcade version it is poor BUT by no means the worst version. That title has to go the little known (today at leaast) version written in basica for the IBM PC. Just white on black in cga res. It was so bad that I played around with the code and and managed to get the ghosts to run away from me.

 

IBM did do their own version that was pretty good. I might even have it somewhere on 5 1/4 inch floppy.

[Rik]

I loved 2600 Pac-man, maybe because at the time i had nothing else at home to compare it to besides the arcade one.But having Pac-Man at home was very cool to me!I still like 2600 Pac-Man!