If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times -- an Atari arcade translation is either very good or absolutely horrible. There's little middle-ground as far as arcade ports for that wonderful console are concerned. Ms. Pac-Man is one of the very good ports and was a welcome site after Atari butchered the Pac-Man port in 1981.

While I realize this is meant to be a review of Ms. Pac-Man, the failed Pac-Man translation must be mentioned in order to keep things in perspective. In 1981, a heck of a lot of people looked forward to Pac-Man and became rather furious after they saw the blocky, obnoxious port of that arcade classic on the 2600. Honestly, Pac-Man is one of the worst games for the console and Atari bungled in a major way by offering such a poor port of it for the 2600.

Evidently, the folks at Atari paid attention to a public that was angry about the miserable Pac-Man title and decided the sequel would be much better. Indeed, 1982's Ms. Pac-Man is a wonderful game and Atari did a fantastic job with it.

While I'll assume that everyone is familiar with this game, I'll go ahead and mention the basic idea behind the Namco-America arcade game that inspired this title. Ms. Pac-Man, simply put, is a maze game in which the player guides the hungry Ms. Pac-Man through a maze while gobbling dots and avoiding ghosts. Why, exactly, the ghosts hate Ms. Pac-Man and want to do her in is something I don't quite know, but those early 1980's arcade games never had to make much sense to be successful. Ms. Pac Man has only two defenses against the four ghosts which chase her -- she can run pretty quick and there are four "power pills" in each maze which allow her to "eat" the ghosts when activated.

The gameplay in the arcade version, like most successful video games in the early 1980s, is simple and addictive. The elements which made the game so much fun were preserved quite well in the home version. Of course, there are some differences. First of all, the maze was more "vertical" in the arcades and is made "horizontal" here to accomodate for television screens. Second, the maze layouts aren't the same. Third, and most importantly, one could always tell which way the ghosts were heading in the arcade machine by looking at their eyes -- the pupils would indicate the way the ghosts were going to travel. The pupils are not drawn in here, so detecting their motion by the method utilized at the local arcade is impossible here.

On the positive side, this game is a massive improvement over Pac-Man. The "bouncing fruit" that Ms. Pac-Man can catch for extra points is preserved, and the ghosts have various colors and personalities. Some nice touches int he home cart are four game variations -- the standard one as well as three easy levels for children (i.e., select from games with one, two or three ghosts for kids learning to play the title).

In a visual sense, this game is very good on the 2600. Anyone who played Pac-Man (or, a good number of 2600 titles, for that matter), can tell you that the "screen flicker" is just horrible. That flicker is cut down quite a bit in this title, meaning one can concentrate on playing rather than avoiding a seizure. The graphics, while blocky, feature well-defined characters and a good amount of color and detail for a 2600 game.

In terms of sound, most of the racket from the arcade title is preserved. The most dominant sound, of course, is Ms. Pac-Man "munching" on dots as well as the rather wilting sound made when she's caught by a ghost. The sound isn't much when compared to modern game systems, but there are enough "bleeps" and "bloops" to convey the necessary information to players.

In short, this is yet another "must have" title for the 2600. It's a dramatic improvement over the dismal (and more common!) Pac-Man, and can be found on eBay or your favorite vintage video game store (putting in my plugs for Game Xchange and Vintage Stock here) pretty easily. Grab it if you find it. I've had this thing for well over 15 years now, and I still love it.


Recommended: Yes