Game Review: Pac-Man for the Atari 2600

Vintage Game Spot Rating: 50 out of 100

This review will be short and to the point because of my lack of enthusiasm for this particular version of this AWESOME original arcade game. 

OK everyone has played Pac-Man and if you haven’t, you are obviously not a vintage gamer. Shame on you. Anyway, in Pac-Man you go around trying to gobble up all the dots while avoiding the four ghosts (Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde) who kill you on contact. The larger dots change the ghosts into eatable targets. It is a port of the extremely popular arcade game of the same name. That is pretty much where the similarity ends.

Released in 1982, over 12 million copies were produced in anticipation of extremely high sales. But, like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the game was rushed into production and become a huge flop. Copies of the game were returned to store en mass and more than 7 million copies went unsold.

The game play resembles the arcade game but the colors are different, the graphics are horrible and the sound is way off.  The game does somewhat function like the arcade version if you can get past the differences in sight and sound. It is just very hard to get over it being such a horrible port!

Because so many were produced, the cartridge is VERY easy to find. You can usually get it for just a dollar or two at your local game store. It is nice to have in your collection, if only to say that you have it. But if you have the option, I recommend getting this game on another platform.