Pac-Man Atari 2600 Review

[MrTrust]

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I don't remember people returning any carts really.  The people I knew would buy a new game every week or two and maybe play the new game a ton until they got next game.  Carts were shared among family and friends, so there was always at least one person in the fam who liked or could tolerate Pac-Man.

 

There were a lot of people who absolutely hated the game back then.  But there were also a lot of people who didn't mind it, and a number who never saw the arcade version and had nothing to judge it against.

 

 

Heheh, well my old man certainly did.  Anything that wasn't up to snuff went right back and he'd just trade in until he got one he liked.  Stores would just take them no questions asked.  I think Electronics Boutique was the last store around here to put the kaibosh on that, and that took a long while.  He was the only one I knew that would get a new game that often.  Either way, whether people were trading them off or returning them, these things weren't being hoarded back then, and everyone still had a copy of that one.  I don't doubt people were disappointed with it, but I don't see any documentary evidence, or from my own experience to show that it affected its popularity all that much.

 

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I would say the Meme started much earlier.   The media equated the fact that ET failed to sell most of its copies (due to massive overproduction) to the game being  bad.

 

That may have been true if you really had your ear to the ground back then, or you were going on BBS or whatever.  If you were just Joe Bloe gamer back then, media coverage of gaming was nearly non-existent, and while there was a dedicated gaming press, there was very little actual reporting done in those magazines.  Apparently, there was A Great Video Game Crash in 1984, but that would have been strange news to the kids I was around in the 80s, many of whom were still getting and trading "Atari tapes" right up into the early 90s.  I was pretty into video games throughout the 80s and 90s, and you never heard a word about any of this stuff.

 

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You have to understand that compared to arcade ports on the 2600 and INTV,  Donkey Kong on the CV was mind-blowing.   It seemed so close to the arcade...   but you have to remember that we didn't have Mame in those days where we could boot up the real DK anytime.   Maybe we went to the mall once a week, and that's the only time we'd play the real thing, so we were comparing the CV DK to our imperfect memory of the game.   Yes it was obvious that the hammers were green when they should be red, and that cut-scenes were missing.  But still those seemed like small details., we had not seen an arcade port like that before.

 

I was still a toddler, but I remember when my old man brought home the NES and I saw that for the first time with those black box games, and even in that limited cognitive state, he might as well have flown up to the house in a spaceship that thing was so hi-tech and futuristic.  I remember seeing pictures of Super Mario Bros. 2 in a magazine and thinking "There's no way that's real.  Those graphics are way too good to be real."  So, I get the feeling.  That's my point; the idea that games would, or could, or should look like the arcade game was pretty alien until the 16-bit machines took hold.  I don't remember anyone seriously comparing home games to the arcade until around the time Street Fighter 2 came out.  I guess there were some pretty accurate Genesis games out there, but we never saw any Ghouls n' Ghosts or Golden Axe machines in the wild to tip us off to that.

 

 

[zzip]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Heheh, well my old man certainly did.  Anything that wasn't up to snuff went right back and he'd just trade in until he got one he liked.  Stores would just take them no questions asked.  I think Electronics Boutique was the last store around here to put the kaibosh on that, and that took a long while.

I remember EB having crappy return policy, but this was late 80s.  My friend had a Tandy 1000, which was not quite 100% DOS compatible.   He bought a game that didn't work.  EB refused to exchange it for a different title or refund if it was opened, only the same title.  Eventually we figured out the loophole though..  exchange it for the same title, but don't open it.  Come back when different people were working and get a refund    I don't remember what the policy was like before because we never returned that many games.    

 

The only game I remember returning myself was "Sneak N Peek", but that was mostly because I felt I was too old and too cool for a Hide & Seek videogame! ?  One of my friends found out I returned it and was annoyed because he wanted to play it!

 

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

I don't doubt people were disappointed with it, but I don't see any documentary evidence, or from my own experience to show that it affected its popularity all that much.

Even Atari knocked it in their own commercials:  (Love how they try to shift the blame to Coleco for the 2600 Pacman!)

 

 

We knew that couldn't expect arcade quality out of the 2600,  but for Pac-man it seemed like they didn't even try.  They didn't try to get the colors right, or sounds,   why is pacman diamond shaped with an eye?   We knew they could do better.  2600 Ms Pac-man wasn't arcade perfect either, but at least that one felt like it was made an effort, and it further proved how bad the Pac Man port was.

 

Now at that point, Pac-man was a cultural phenomenon,  so the cartridge was highly anticipated, and people were going to buy it no matter what

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

and while there was a dedicated gaming press, there was very little actual reporting done in those magazines.  Apparently, there was A Great Video Game Crash in 1984, but that would have been strange news to the kids I was around in the 80s, many of whom were still getting and trading "Atari tapes" right up into the early 90s.  I was pretty into video games throughout the 80s and 90s, and you never heard a word about any of this stuff.

I used to subscribe to Electronic Games magazine, and they did a feature story on the crash (or "shake-out" as they called it),  and they shut down ceased publication within a year because of it.    But there was other evidence all around.  For a time in school, video games dominated the conversations among us kids.    Then suddenly everyone stopped talking about games.  Everyone was more into MTV and whatever else was hot in the 80s.  Most of the arcades in my area closed shop,  games and consoles were disappearing from retail stores, only Toys R Us still had a good selection of current games (and Kaybee for marked-down games).  By the time I got to high school, it felt distinctly uncool to be a gamer, and we kept that hobby to ourselves...   Until the NES came and made it cool again.

 

Yes some of us played games the whole time,  but there were also a lot of people who got into it when it was the hottest thing, and got out of it when it was uncool.

 

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

That's my point; the idea that games would, or could, or should look like the arcade game was pretty alien until the 16-bit machines took hold.  I don't remember anyone seriously comparing home games to the arcade until around the time Street Fighter 2 came out.  I guess there were some pretty accurate Genesis games out there, but we never saw any Ghouls n' Ghosts or Golden Axe machines in the wild to tip us off to that.

Arcade comparisons were a big deal in the early 80s (as you can see in the commercial I posted above).   Coleco and the 5200 were both boasting arcade-quality graphics.  But by the time the NES came, arcades had shifted to 16-bit games so the gap between home and arcade widened again.

 

[7800Knight]

I prefer Jr. Pac-Man if I want an Atari 2600 Pac title.

 

That said, we used to play Pac-Man a lot on our Atari 2600 ages ago.  We liked it.  It's not the worst game in the world as other 2600 games deserve that dishonor.

[+Pat Brady]

 

On 2/10/2021 at 2:57 PM, zzip said:

Even Atari knocked it in their own commercials:  (Love how they try to shift the blame to Coleco for the 2600 Pacman!)

 

 

 

That is amazing! My favorite part is: if you buy a 5200, you can play the version of Pac-Man we just trashed, if you also buy a separate adapter.

 

[zzip]

25 minutes ago, Pat Brady said:

 

 

That is amazing! My favorite part is: if you buy a 5200, you can play the version of Pac-Man we just trashed, if you also buy a separate adapter.

 

I know right?   Talk about mixed messaging ?    I wonder how this commercial worked out for them BITD?

[+somebooks]

I always played Pac-Man in black-and-white mode. The graphics looked crisper on my TV, and the ghosts just looked more... ghostly... rather than flickery. I remember sometimes switching it to color mode for fun and being like "whoa! look at all those colors!" -- I was pretty young so in my memory I can almost TASTE those colors -- but I'd switch back to black-and-white mode when it was time to get serious.

[dukes909]

On 2/10/2021 at 2:57 PM, zzip said:

On 2/10/2021 at 1:12 PM, MrTrust said:

and while there was a dedicated gaming press, there was very little actual reporting done in those magazines.  Apparently, there was A Great Video Game Crash in 1984, but that would have been strange news to the kids I was around in the 80s, many of whom were still getting and trading "Atari tapes" right up into the early 90s.  I was pretty into video games throughout the 80s and 90s, and you never heard a word about any of this stuff.

I used to subscribe to Electronic Games magazine, and they did a feature story on the crash (or "shake-out" as they called it),  and they shut down ceased publication within a year because of it.

I am way late to this thread and enjoyed Pac-Man on the 2600 back in the day, but I was disappointed with how it looked compared to the one in the arcade.  In any case, what brought me here was this line about Electronic Games magazine.  I remember that issue well and still have it somewhere. Rather than dig it out of my basement and scan it, internet archive has copies online: https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_02_Number_12_1984-03_Reese_Communications_US/page/n21/mode/2up

Page 6 has an editorial about the crash as well.

 

I also remember reading it back then thinking "duh!" as it was obvious to me at the wise age of 15 that arcades were going the way of the Dodo and my 2600 just wasn't as fun anymore. I was using a brand new computer called a Macintosh in a high school journalism class instead of playing games.  The Police had broken up,  Star Wars was over and was now a name for Reagan's missile defense system, agggh my youth was ending, bwaaa!  ?

Dukester

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by dukes909
typo

[high voltage]

Also, 83/84, in USA the C64 /fdd sold oodles, games were like, 'wow the next level' when compared to VCS....And computer games are copyable (bonus).

Apple ][ was gaining more sales as well.

Atari 800XL came along, the same Activision games looked and played better on computer than VCS, EA had a fantastic line-up of games.

And more games came for the IBM, the Juggernaut 

Edited February 16, 2021 by high voltage
sex

[Video]

Pac man was always a favorite of mine. It's never been a bad game, and you'd be right in much negativity comes from it not being "arcade perfect". Much more comes from post internet and mindless "me too" posts from mid 90's onward. Atari is old, therefore it's cool to bash it. Interestingly, largely being bashed by people with only the desire to be contrary, many of which probably never played it bitd.

 

Yes, there is precisely 1 game review from back in the day that wasn't glowing, but you'll notice that it's the same scan posted EVERY time. And even there,while it mentions the games flaws (mostly it's not "arcade perfect") that "this game sucks" review in fact, never said the game sucks.

 

Could Pac man be better? Sure. Is it some mythical unplayable pile of dog sh!t? No. It's just an above average game for its time that had the misfortune to be released at the "growing pains" era for 2600, going from games that were rather chunky and clumsy looking to those much better looking more refined later games. There's nothing that people can say of Pac man that doesn't apply to nearly every other 2600 game of its time (and earlier) while many of those games get a free pass, or out and out are considered to be some of the best games on the system.

[BrianC]

On 2/12/2021 at 11:13 AM, zzip said:

I know right?   Talk about mixed messaging ?    I wonder how this commercial worked out for them BITD?

Not to mention that Atari actually did plan to publish a port of Pac-Man for the Colecovision (though it was never officially released). And Jungle Hunt was released by Atarisoft for CV with better graphics than those on the 5200. Of course, these versions were made afterwards, but it's funny that they ended up publishing games for a system they trashed. 

Edited February 17, 2021 by BrianC

[zzip]

8 hours ago, BrianC said:

Not to mention that Atari actually did plan to publish a port of Pac-Man for the Colecovision (though it was never officially released). And Jungle Hunt was released by Atarisoft for CV with better graphics than those on the 5200. Of course, these versions were made afterwards, but it's funny that they ended up publishing games for a system they trashed. 

Yeah, the Atarisoft line came later.   I'm guessing this ad was early 83, and Atarisoft was either later 83 or early 84.   Still that must have in the planning/development stages when this ad was run.

 

But all three companies- Mattel, Coleco and Atari were running ads trashing the games on each others systems,  and then all three started cross-publishing.   Mattel had all the George Plimpton ads showing how much better sports games where on INTV than Atari.   But then they go and produce ports of their sports games to the 2600 under the M-Network label!