As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #12, May 2005.

Can’t believe we’ve gone this long covering Tengen NES games without mentioning Pac-Man.  It’s hard to think of a game that has stronger roots in popular culture or that has had more impact on the industry as a whole.  Developed by in Japan by Namco, Pac-Man was really the game that made the world stand up and notice video gaming across the board in terms of age groups and mass media.  Pac-Man was truly America’s first video game merchandising powerhouse leading to endless amounts of shirts, stuffed toys, lunchboxes, phones, a short-lived cartoon series, a cult favorite song, and pretty much anything else one could imagine.  I in fact carried a Pac-Man lunchbox to work with me for many years just not too long ago, it was always a good conversation starter.  The world certainly did have “Pac-Man fever.”  Namco even adapted Pacy as their unofficial mascot.  As the years rolled on Pac-Man never lost its luster and continued to be ported to nearly every gaming system on the planet, including countless reworks, sequels and spin-offs.  It made perfect sense for an NES version of this classic among classics, and Tengen was up to the challenge.  After the legal sue-fest between Nintendo and Tengen a licensed version by Namco was released.  While the cartridge exteriors are different, the games are exactly the same except for the title screen copyright information.

Where the Tengen port of Ms. Pac-Man threw in extra features and play modes, Pac-Man is a straight port of the arcade classic.  This may seem disappointing at first but a well-done straight port is always better than a lackluster reproduction with extra features.  The maze layout is exactly as it was in the arcade and all the colors are spot on, given the limitations of the NES color palette.  On the NES Pac-Man plays exactly as it did in the arcade with responsive controls.  The action does move a bit slower then it did originally but the speeds are consistent and unless you’re going back and forth between the NES and arcade you won’t notice the slight pacing difference.  Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde all move about the maze with their characteristic speeds and movement and movement techniques to lead them transfer over well from the arcade.  I’m not sure as to if their patterns are the same as they were in the arcade since I missed that part of the arcade culture by a few years.  However I figure if you’re proficient enough to remember the patterns in Pac-Man after all these years then you’ll probably not be playing this on the NES but on a dedicated machine in your game room or basement.  The audio is again spot on given the limitations of the NES with nicely reproduced sound effects and music in the intermission sequences, which are exact to the arcade original.

There’s really not a whole lot to say here since it’s a solid 8-bit port of Pac-Man, a game where there really isn’t anything that hasn’t been said about it.  If you’re looking for some classic retrogaming on your NES you really can’t go wrong with Pac-Man and no matter which release you pick up you’ll have a good time.  At the time of writing this Pac-Man seems to be selling at most used game stores for $10 to $15 less than Ms. Pac-Man so it’s a nice alternative if you’re not into tossing down $25 for a loose used NES cartridge.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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