Pac-Man on Atari 2600

[Moirai]

AlecRob and I got together to play some good old fashioned Pac-Man... Well, that and the 2007 remake of Pac-Man.

Nothing shall ever surpass the mighty Derp-Man!

[Lan Di]

AlecRob and I got together to play some good old fashioned Pac-Man... Well, that and the 2007 remake of Pac-Man.

I remember getting that for Christmas back in the day and I was simply horrified at the awful sound and primitive graphics. Keep in mind, Pac-Man was a huge ground breaking game in the arcades, and the Atari 2600 version was a tremendous disappointment. Absolutely no comparison.

[SegaSonic91]

Hate it? I loved it when I was a very very young kid. I was far too young to have any exposure to the arcade version though. Arcades came a few years later for me when I was 8 or 9 in '86. That would be around the time I fell in love with Wonderboy (Ghosts'n'Goblins too) consequently, SEGA.

I can remember my best friend and I playing PAC-MAN all the time. I remember one Saturday when I had to just quit and turn it off because I had a screen full of extra men and had been playing for aaaaaages. I don't remember if it was easy or I had just gotten so good at it by that point. My fav Atari 2600 games other than PAC-MAN were Adventure, Frogger, River-Raid and of course, Pitfall. I had a PAC-MAN watch too, ahhh, I loved that thing! I guess that the first time I really played arcade PAC-MAN was the Game Gear version.

It seems so strange to me that in 1985 I was playing the A2600 and Vic-20 the same time that Japan had the Famicom and soon, the Mark III. I have a very fond nostalgia for C64 Ghosts'n'Goblins, but no doubt I would have rather played the Famicom version if I had a choice, lol!

[NeoZeedeater]

I have a very fond nostalgia for C64 Ghosts'n'Goblins, but no doubt I would have rather played the Famicom version if I had a choice, lol!

I'm a fan of both but I think I prefer C64 Ghosts 'n Goblins over NES. It scrolls smoother and has a better soundtrack.

[gamevet]

I can remember my best friend and I playing PAC-MAN all the time. I remember one Saturday when I had to just quit and turn it off because I had a screen full of extra men and had been playing for aaaaaages. I don't remember if it was easy or I had just gotten so good at it by that point. My fav Atari 2600 games other than PAC-MAN were Adventure, Frogger, River-Raid and of course, Pitfall. I had a PAC-MAN watch too, ahhh, I loved that thing! I guess that the first time I really played arcade PAC-MAN was the Game Gear version.

It seems so strange to me that in 1985 I was playing the A2600 and Vic-20 the same time that Japan had the Famicom and soon, the Mark III. I have a very fond nostalgia for C64 Ghosts'n'Goblins, but no doubt I would have rather played the Famicom version if I had a choice, lol!

Ha!

My brother and I had glass PAC-MAN mugs we had gotten from a fast food joint. Whenever I drank milk out of that mug I'd rinse it with hot water. One day the bottom fell out of my mug while I was rinsing it out, so I started using my brother's mug. A couple of weeks later the same thing happened. I didn't know you weren't supposed to rinse a cold glass with hot water.

[profholt82]

^That's a shame. I actually had this one. I don't remember how I got it, but it was when I was little in the mid-80s. Anyway, it lasted until adulthood when it was shattered during a move. I was pretty upset about it.

[gamevet]

I remember that glass.

That's a real shame.

[Chris]

I used to play it and enjoyed it untill I got the arcade version on a compilation disk for a newer system, then I never played it again, but of course the arcade perfect version is going to be better. I'm just glad I didn't buy it new, I got my cartridge with dozens of others when I got the 2600. I found an empty Pac-Man box for 2600 years ago and the price tag looks like this

London drugs
Our Low Price
$ 68.88

[gamevet]

That's a lot of $$$

I only paid @ $28 for the game.

[SegaSonic91]

I'm a fan of both but I think I prefer C64 Ghosts 'n Goblins over NES. It scrolls smoother and has a better soundtrack.

To be fair, I've never played the Famicom game other than a quick look on an emu. It *looked* like the arcade game though, ten times more than the good old C64 version. The Arthur sprite did look quite ugly and badly drawn from what I remember. The C64 music is something imprinted on my brain, I never forgot and can hear it in my head right now, haha. I looked it up on YouTube years ago and hearing that music really took me back to that time. Along with looking at the actual graphics of course.

[Chris]

That's a lot of $$$

I only paid @ $28 for the game.

and that was in 1981, I wonder what 70 bucks in 1981 would be worth in 2014 canadian dollars.

[gamevet]

and that was in 1981, I wonder what 70 bucks in 1981 would be worth in 2014 canadian dollars.

Minimum wage in the US was @ $3 an hour. A person flipping burgers at McDonalds would have had to worked 4 days to pay for that.

[NeoZeedeater]

Yeah, that price is crazy. I don't remember ever seeing any game that expensive until Phantasy Star.

[The Coop]

The Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man was a lazy port. The flickering couldn't have been helped much, but compared to the 2600 port of Ms. Pac-Man that showed up in 1982, it was rather lacking. It smacked of rush job, even back then.

Is it the worst game on the 2600? No, as there are far worse offenders when it comes to original games and ports. But could it have been done more justice? Considerably so, yes.

[midnightrider]

Was this really one of the reasons for the crash? Did people just collectively decide that Pacman and ET were just so bad that they gave up on video games?

I've seen it stated a time or 2 that E.T. is actually a pretty competent game for something that was given a week to develop. Most just didn't understand what needed to be done in-game.

I think the effect of both games is over-exaggerated. At worst they would have hampered Atari financially, by being stupid enough to make more copies of both games than consoles that were sold/existed.

The main reason for the crash would have been lack of quality control, leading to a glut of games that couldn't be sold. Once courts allowed 3rd party support(Atari tried suing Activision, former Atari employees, who usually made the consoles best games), Atari didn't seem to know how to handle that, and every company from Quaker Oats to Purina wanted a piece of the video game pie. It got to the point where there were so many games on the market, older games were being sold for 1/6th the price of new games, which made new game unprofitable.

That's what lead to the "Nintendo Seal of Quality." It wasn't a guarantee of quality games, as it was a reassurance that Nintendo knew those games were being developed for the NES.

Edit: If this hasn't been brought up already, my understanding of 2600 Pac-Man was that the developer wanted more time to work on it, but after showing what he had so far after a week, Atari went with it as it was.