Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - Positives - Rerez

rerez (69)in #gaming • 7 years ago

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Today I’m going to be looking at Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 which is no doubt one of the worst games ever made in the history of the video game medium. Let's find the positives.

The original Pac-Man that was released in the arcades is a fantastic game but that game did not translate well to the Atari 2600. There's a whole bunch of reasons why it happened but let's just focus on this. It was pushed out way too quickly. They didn't take enough time designing the game and because of that there are a bunch of issues. The way Pac-Man eats pellets doesn't always seem to work properly. And the biggest problem with the game, one that almost makes the game unplayable, is the fact that the ghosts kind of flicker in and out. Now this is an issue because if you're playing the game and the ghosts are kind of close to you they'll kill you because you won't be able to see which ghost is around you at any given moment. Those issues make the game really stressful but not unplayable.

When Atari was releasing games for the Atari 2600 they were creating a lot of really good box art designs and Pac-Man is one of the games that actually stands out. They had a lot riding on this game so they put in a really good effort into making the art design on the box look really cool. So positive number one is it's got great-looking box art. In most versions of Pac-Man that I've played Pac-Man is usually represented by being a big circle with a triangle cut out for his mouth but the Atari version did something a little bit different. You can actually see his eyes. I know it seems kind of weird but I like to see Pac-Man's eyes. It makes me feel like he's more of a character rather than just a circle. Positive number two is that Pac-Man actually has eyes.

This game has several problems but one of the things you can't fault this game for having is bad controls because honestly they're pretty reliable. When you're playing the game if you ever die it's usually because the ghosts are flickering in and out but the controls themselves feel very responsive. You're able to control Pac-Man in a very precise way so because of that positive number three is reliable controls. One of the things that always bugged me about playing Pac-Man on the arcade is when you got to the power pellet and you ate a ghost that ghost would respawn in the center box and when he respawned he would be invincible. Pac-Man wouldn't actually be able to eat him even if the ability of the power pellet was still affecting him. You can only eat ghosts that you didn't already eat during that power pellet. This always bugged me because it didn't make Pac-Man feel invincible. Basically if a ghost respawned he would kill you. As sad as it is to say the Atari 2600 version kind of fixed that for me. Basically when you pick up a power pellet in this version of the game every single ghost that you eat goes all the way back to the center box and they will not leave until the power pellet effect has worn off. That's cool I actually like that. Positive number four is that the power pellets in Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 work better than in any other version of the game that I've ever played.

Let me be clear. Just because I'm making four positives of this game doesn't mean you should run out and play it. This is the worst version of the game that was ever made. Don't play this version. Don't go out of your way and find it and pick it up. It's not worth it. What you should be doing is playing the NES version or in fact a modernized version that's emulating the arcade original. Those are the versions of Pac-Man that are worth playing. This one this one deserved to be buried at that Atari landfill not ET. This was truly the worst game they ever released on the platform.

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