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| Welcome
to Game of the Week! Each week there will be a
new featured game on this page. The game may be good,
average or diabolically bad, it really doesn't matter!
Just look at the pics, read the text and enjoy the nostalgia!
:-) Game of the Week! is open to contributions so if you
would like to contribute
a game article for this page you're more than welcome
to! Every article we receive will be considered! |
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Pac-Man
1983 Atarisoft
Programmed
by ?
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text of the present article comes from the review published
in the fourth issue of the British C64 magazine ZZAP!64
(August 1985). |
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PAC
MAN
Datasoft/US
Gold, £9.95 cass, £14.95 disk, joystick only
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Pac
Man must be one of the most well known computer
characters of all time. The millions of Pac Man telly
programs, computer variants, mugs, tee-shirts, Y-fronts,
arcade rip-offs, furry jock straps and comics tell the
tale.
For
the one Trappist Monk in outer Mongolia who has been
locked in a crypt without any communication with the
outside world for the last four years, this is what
Pac Man is.
Nothing
new, but very authentic and being gobbled
up is just as frustrating as ever it was in the arcades.
You
take the role of Pac Man, a custard pie like thing which
has an insatiable appetite for dots. You have to patrol
a single-screen maze and eat all the dots to advance
to the next screen. To add a little spice to your gobbling
escapades there are four ghosts, Inky, Pinky, Blinky
and Clyde, who chase you, and if they catch up, kill
you. To help you thwart their horrible, aggressive tendencies
there are four power dots at the four corners of the
maze and if eaten, these turn the ghosts blue. You can
now chase the ghosts and eat them for bonus points.
After a while they'll start to flash. This is the warning
that they are just about to revert back to normal and
will give chase, so steer well clear.
Just
a few dots left to go. . . .
Twice
during the screen, a fruit will appear. Eat this and
you will gain bonus points. On higher levels this fruit
increases in value until it is worth 5,000 points. On
higher levels the ghosts become much faster and meaner
in their tracking capability, the power dots become
less powerful until, on the key levels, they only make
the ghosts turn round.
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Presentation 72%
Good
instructions and play options.
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Having
no 64 Pac
Man in
my software collection, I must say I really enjoyed
playing this one. There's quite a big challenge
for anyone buying it although, to say the least,
the game is a bit dated. You can develop your
own patterns for each screen and it will take
quite a while to find a pattern for the hardest
key screen. The graphics and sound are very similar
to the arcade game, which is to say, a bit simple
and old-fashioned looking. Overall, although expensive,
this is the best Pac
Man available,
and all I can say is that I'm surprised hardly
anyone has done it on the 64 before.
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Graphics 23%
Very close to the original ie rather
poor and dated.
Sound
19%
Very close to the original ie very
poor and dated.
Hookability
47%
No real initial interest unless
you're a historian as the game idea has been long
overtaken.
Lastability
31%
Nothing to really keep you going
other than nostalgia.
Value
For Money 42%
A tenner seems very high for this
ageing arcade game even if it is a classic.
Overall
35%
It's the best version of Pac
Man on the 64, but it's just too late.
.
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Htmlized
by Dimitris
Kiminas (21 April 2002)
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