Confessional Booth

[belty]

Recently on this forum I stated that Pac Man was crap saying it was not good in the day and it still isn't, likewise I said Asteroids was borderline however Space Invaders a true classic. Well with my flippant tendancies coupled within a certain bout of whimsy I played Asteroids again and found I liked it and got hooked. No doubt I will have a relapse though.

 

Anyway I stand firm with Pac Man. I therefore throw down the gauntlet, this thread has been officially blessed by all religions except the Moonies and has become a makeshift temporary confessional booth.

 

If you have secretly harboured the notions for many years that Pac Man is a frustrating waste of time, you may confess here in utmost privacy and dignity. You will not be judged and thought less of for your historical gaming prowess and made to feel small that you idolised a character, bought stickers and such merchandise but could not admit even to yourself that everything it stood for was crap.

 

Think of this as a self help group, to make everyone feel comfortable I'll go first.

 

"Hello my name is Belty and think Pac-Man is... ahem.. er..."

 

Sorry, I must relax, breath deeply, I'll try again, sorry I'm very nervous, ok, I'm ready.

 

"Hellomynameisbeltyandithinkpacmaniscrap" phew, I can't believe I did it, that feels so much better, I feel I can live a normal life now. Right I'm off fishing.

[Cootster]

Er, you do mean the 2600 version, right?

 

2600 Pac-Man is somewhere around the fifteenth best clone of the original KC Munchkin made by a drug-addled lunatic ever.

 

Every other version or sequel is classic.

[stayrunner]

Great game! A classic if there ever was one.

 

I think you are definitely in the minority on this one!

[christianscott27]

i confess, i suck at pac man, always have

 

i never played it in the arcades, considered it a waste of quarters since i died so quickly. i remember being in a bennigans as a kid and some disco stu type was kicking butt on the cocktail pac man, he even got to that point where the screen goes half size. i remember thinking "damn rich grown ups, this guy probably makes like 30 quarters an hour and i have to dig under the couch cushions". my buddy brian used to have the maze patterns, he had the book and he kicked butt too, then again this was the kid who used to read all the trivial pursuit cards to beat everybody.

 

i was a galaga, xevious, time pilot, joust kinda guy. mazes never did it for me. we got 2600 pac man cause my sister wanted it, i didnt think it sucked that bad, i jsut didnt like the game itself. now as a collector i have tons of pac man stuff, the phone, the trash can, the glasses, posters...but it has everything to with the era and nothing to do with game. at its height pac-mania was bigger than the gameplay, it was a pop culture explosion.

[Voch]

My family and I played the Atari 2600 Pac-Man to death when my uncle bought it for us back in the early 80's. My aunt, my grandmother, my friends, basically everyone except my Mom (she's not into video games) played it...we even had mini-tournaments. I still like it to this day (it sucks as Pac-Man, but is a solid Atari game in general) but I have moved on.

 

I also played K.C. Munchkin on my friend's O2 back in the day and it was pretty nifty, but I liked our family Atari more.

 

Of course, now I have both systems and more.

 

Voch

[Stingray]

There were few moments in my childhood that equalled the crushing dissapointment that I experienced the first time I played the 2600 version of Pac-Man. I was and remain a junkie of the arcade version and words just cannot express the level of crapitude that 2600 Pac-Man emits.

 

Having said that I still played the heck out of it when I was a kid and to this day drag the cart out for a couple of rounds now and then. All in all I'd much rather play the arcade version on my MAME cab though.

 

-S

[ATARIPITBULL]

The Atari 2600 Pac-man is by far and away the biggest piece of S**T I ever played!!!!!!!!!!!! I remember as a kid getting into fist fights over who was going to play Pac-man in the arcade by my house and anyone who tired to take cuts got his ass handed to him, then the day came when Atari was coming out with it and I had to beg my dad that I would not get into any trouble for a year if he would buy it for me and he said he would think about it, well shortly after it came out, my dad comes home with the yellow box in his hand and said "play the hell out of it because he was not going back to the store for another 2600 game", I called all my friends over to my house to play it and when we saw the screen come up, we all shit our pants at this waist of money.

 

Now with all that said, I love the new Pac-Man arcade version that is sold here at Atari and the label design is great.

 

[rockman_x_2002]

Well... I'll just add the usual comments. The game's a classic, yes. And it makes for a nice diversion. But a version more true to the arcade would've been nice.

 

On a comparison scale, without the Pac-Man label and name, the game stands alone as a nice little, well... Pac-Man clone. But with that Pac-Man label on there, it immediately loses its carrying force.

 

So perhaps there's our answer. Tear the labels off the Pac-Man carts and alter history.

 

"Pac-Man for 2600? What are you talking about, man!? There was never a 2600 Pac-Man. This is just a game that kinda plays like Pac-Man."

 

[Myrmidon]

I don't usually reply to this 'tired-ol'-pacman-yarn', but I suppose I'll throw in my 2 cents here.

 

My friends and I loved A2600 pac-man back in the day. Sure it wasn't as good as the arcades, but we didn't care, it was FREE!!! So we played it week after week with that monotonous 'dang-dang-dang-dang' sound every time you eat a dot, and the infamous 'peet-you-weep' when you gobbled a ghost --- aaah the nostalgia :-)

 

Cheers

Olaf

[Buck]

My only question is why werent the freakin' colors of the maze and background at least closer to the original? Is that too much to ask?

Anybody who is a hackster feel like switching the colors?

 

Buck

[Dolt]

I called all my friends over to my house to play it and when we saw the screen come up, we all shit our pants at this waist of money.

 

Wow, 20 eight-year-olds, reeking of crap. Glad I didn't live in your house!

 

I entered this thread thinking it was going to be something like this:

 

"Forgive me father, for I have evil in my heart. I have coveted my neighbor's Quadrun, and have lusted for his boxed 'Guardian' by Apollo."

 

"That's understandable, son; to repent, you must play 10 Skeet Shoots and 5 ET's."

 

"Aw. c'mon--I wasn't THAT bad!"