Pacman 2600 discussion page

[Chris Leach]

 

do you think they were playing Pac man..and how many times has this been said? there is no game in the console...did they even know how to work an atari back then? Like getting a vcr to stop blinking..so complex!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0bR7WFXCD4&feature=player_embedded

Edited December 5, 2011 by Chris Leach

[SoulBlazer]

Heck, even as a kid I knew 2600 Pac Man was bad. Of course I still played the heck out of it -- I knew that my parents had paid good money for it and it was at least a passable form of the game -- but I was very disapointed.

 

I think the major points, that someone allready brought up, is that if you KNEW the arcade game, you knew how great the game was and how totally shoddy it looked on the 2600. Sure, we knew the game wouldn't be perfect -- none of Atari's arcade ports were. But none of them were as bad as Pac-Man.

 

Also, the game COULD have been a lot better at the time it was programed. It makes me wonder if Todd is correct in saying he had a 4k much improved version ready to go but Atari being the cheap bastards that we know they were decided to go with this inferior 2k version. They knew they had a hit game and that people would buy millions of copies anyway, so who cares how it looks? Just get it out for there for the stupid public to buy and sue the ass of anyone trying to make a good (better) clone of it!

 

Pac-Man was really the first chink in Atari's armor, the first proof that not all was well. They didn't learn any better a year later when they rushed ET out of the door either -- but that's a whole another story.

[VectorGamer]

On the flip side, VCS Defender had not seen the bashing BITD as it does now.

[NE146]

Agreed.. Defender was seen as amazing. It was obviously below the arcade game (which I was VERY familiar with. heck, I'm 42 and a pure child of the arcade ) but man it was good having a version of it at home on the VCS. It was great and I had a lot of fun with it, knowing full well that it was the VCS "version".

 

2600 Pacman was a little different. Of course I knew (and was good at) the arcade version. I got the VCS version and it did fall below my expectations, but it was after all the Atari VCS. But a lot of it just didn't jibe like Defender did. The sounds were annoying, etc. I think if they made a simple change of having Pacman face up & down it would have gone a lot farther in in my acceptance of it. But whatever, I wasn't MAD at it though.. or even super dissapointed. It just was what it was I did end up playing it a lot and even won a contest playing the game where I won another VCS

[high voltage]

Ah that reminds me, I've just won a cib Beat 'em & eat 'em, looking forward to it :-)

[Cynicaster]

 

 

If you did not stand in line to play the arcade game, then you're missing a big part of the story as to why VCS Pac-Man sucks. If you were too young or weren't even born yet in 1980 to play Pac-Man in the arcade, most likely you won't get it - plain and simple.

 

I can definitely see what you’re saying, as I fall into the category of being a bit too young to have experienced the golden age of arcade games while they were still drawing lineups.

 

I’ll never forget a fateful day In 1982 when I was 4-5 years old, my mom brought my brother and I over to her friends’ house, and they had just bought an Atari for their son. We played Pac-Man and Space Invaders that day, which were the very first videogames I ever touched (or saw) in my life. My brother and I still laugh about how on Pac-Man I kept making the same move from the home position – left then up – and getting killed by the same ghost over and over again, scoring a whopping 6 points or so in the first videogame of my life.

 

We got our own Atari the following year, with Pac-Man being our first game aside from Combat.

 

Atari 2600 Pac-Man stood as my whole “concept” of what Pac-Man was for the next two decades—dumb terminology and all (vitamins, power pills, etc.). I think I might have briefly played ports on later systems that did a much better job, but in those days I didn’t care enough about Pac-Man to even pay attention.

 

I didn’t even realize it until I discovered MAME and tried Pac-Man in that format, but I had never played the arcade version of Pac-Man until after the year 2000. Now the original Pac-Man on MAME is one of my go-to games—especially when guests come over—and I can really appreciate its brilliance even though I missed it growing up. If the bar was set there, I can totally understand how the 2600 version would be a complete letdown.

 

I finally got around to buying an Atari 2600 last year after a 23 year hiatus, and I did make a point of hunting down a copy of Pac-Man, but I don’t think I’ve played it once.

[pixelated]

Comparisons to 2600 Ms. Pac-Man aren't entirely fair, either: Ms. Pac-Man had the benefit of twice the ROM space (which apparently wasn't an option with the original Pac-Man), it was released about a year later, and it sacrificed Pac-Man's two-player mode. Why didn't Atari "retrofit" the original Pac-Man with the technology developed for Ms. Pac-Man? One reason I can think of is that Ms. Pac-Man was not actually programmed by Atari; it was done at GCC, like a lot of Atari's other arcade ports (such as Vanguard, Galaxian, Dig Dug, etc)

 

Here's the thing, though - what about Muncher for the Astrocade? That's a better port of Pac-Man than Atari's and it came out not too long after the 2600 port. My point is, they could have done a lot better even with inferior hardware and less ROM. Missile Command came out for the 2600 around the same time and it's a fine, but slightly different home version of the arcade classic. Same with Space Invaders. Honestly, I just think that Atari 2600 Pac-Man is lazy. It's not the worse 2600 game I've ever played (that "honor" goes to Karate) but it ain't gold either.

[pimpmaul69]

 

 

If you did not stand in line to play the arcade game, then you're missing a big part of the story as to why VCS Pac-Man sucks. If you were too young or weren't even born yet in 1980 to play Pac-Man in the arcade, most likely you won't get it - plain and simple.

 

I can definitely see what you’re saying, as I fall into the category of being a bit too young to have experienced the golden age of arcade games while they were still drawing lineups.

 

I’ll never forget a fateful day In 1982 when I was 4-5 years old, my mom brought my brother and I over to her friends’ house, and they had just bought an Atari for their son. We played Pac-Man and Space Invaders that day, which were the very first videogames I ever touched (or saw) in my life. My brother and I still laugh about how on Pac-Man I kept making the same move from the home position – left then up – and getting killed by the same ghost over and over again, scoring a whopping 6 points or so in the first videogame of my life.

 

We got our own Atari the following year, with Pac-Man being our first game aside from Combat.

 

Atari 2600 Pac-Man stood as my whole “concept” of what Pac-Man was for the next two decades—dumb terminology and all (vitamins, power pills, etc.). I think I might have briefly played ports on later systems that did a much better job, but in those days I didn’t care enough about Pac-Man to even pay attention.

 

I didn’t even realize it until I discovered MAME and tried Pac-Man in that format, but I had never played the arcade version of Pac-Man until after the year 2000. Now the original Pac-Man on MAME is one of my go-to games—especially when guests come over—and I can really appreciate its brilliance even though I missed it growing up. If the bar was set there, I can totally understand how the 2600 version would be a complete letdown.

 

I finally got around to buying an Atari 2600 last year after a 23 year hiatus, and I did make a point of hunting down a copy of Pac-Man, but I don’t think I’ve played it once.

i have to say my story is pretty much the exact same. I was born in 76 and didnt play til 82. I didnt play pac-man again until mame in 2000. Now i am obsessed. Have a pac-man tattoo. Custom nike pac-man shoes, arcade machine, about 20 pac-man shirts, and other stuff i collect. Pac-man back in the day was crappy but still loved it. Did people complain about the pac-man handheld? That is awful. I still love it and we played the hell out of crappy handhelds and never complained about the atari and nes versions being better. My first games i ever played were baseball and football on handheld in the 70's. Those are really awful but we loved playing them. Even as i kid i understood that the atari was limited but didnt care.

[VectorGamer]

Did people complain about the pac-man handheld? That is awful. I still love it and we played the hell out of crappy handhelds and never complained about the atari and nes versions being better. My first games i ever played were baseball and football on handheld in the 70's. Those are really awful but we loved playing them. Even as i kid i understood that the atari was limited but didnt care.

 

I'm guessing you're referring to the Coleco mini-arcades that were released...in my circle of friends I think there was only one kid that had the Pac-Man. I played it a couple of times and although it wasn't my cup of tea I remember it being better than I imagined. But, I really had no use for it since I could play the real deal in the arcade.

 

The Mattel football (and to a lesser degree the others that came out) handhelds were successful. A lot of kids had the original or the "Football II" (like I did) and were great for many reasons.

[acelkin]

Oh man, was I ever disappointed in this 'conversion'! This was 'my' game in the arcades. I even entered a Pac-Man tournament at Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines. I ended up getting my highest score ever with 128,000 something (laughable now that I've seen Milly Bitchell & the like-lol). The grand prize was a Pac-Man arcade game. I didn't win, took 3rd place & got a gift certificate for $25 to the mall.

 

Anyway, this game for me was horrifying. I hated everything about it. The maze was wrong, the ghosts were pinkish-yellow, Pac-Man looked totally wrong & didn't even turn. The dots were dashes, the fruit vitamins. Hell, even the ghosts came out of their tunnel the wrong direction! And the scoring on the game, they couldn't even get that right. I of course played it quite a bit growing up, but after Ms Pac-Man came out, I was even more infuriated.

 

I now know the whole back-story, the rush job, the 4k allowed to Tod Frye, so I've definitely lightened my criticism. I did put it in the other day just for the heck of it...it's still a turd in my book!

[Rik]

The game that disappointed us "ALL"?I wouldn't say all, many actually do like 2600 Pac-Man, including me.I couldn't stop playing it when I 1st got it, and yes I paid full retail price, $70 CDN.There was a 20 person long line up when it was being sold the 1st day at this one department store.Sure, it sounds ridiculous to have paid that much but that was back in 81 and the promotion was the most aggressive I have ever seen for any new product, even to this day, it was unreal.I know this has been said a million times and becoming redundant but however is true, if you take the game for what it is and stop comparing it to other versions, it's IMO a pretty good game.

[accousticguitar]

I now know the whole back-story, the rush job, the 4k allowed to Tod Frye, so I've definitely lightened my criticism.

It was not a rush job. Tod Frye worked on the game for six months.

 

I like the game a lot more now than I did back in the day. I paid $30 of my hard earned cash for it and was very disappointed. If the game just had a better maze (more like the arcade), horizontal tunnels (like the arcade) and Pac-Man turned when going up or down I would have liked it a lot better. Those were the three things I held against it and I think they should have been possible even with 4k in 1982.

[SoulBlazer]

if you take the game for what it is and stop comparing it to other versions, it's IMO a pretty good game.

 

I think that's where the problem comes from, and the crux of the discussion going on here. For those of us who did NOT play Pac-Man in the arcades the 2600 version is fine, even good. The person doesn't have anything to compare it to. Therefore, there's no disapoinment or bitterness about how rotten a port the game is. But for those of us who DID play Pac-Man in the arcades, and udnerstood there would be some compromise with the home version, we took one look at this port and said 'what the F is this?' (Well, those of us old enough to use a F bomb. )

 

In hindsight, I still stand by my main point -- Atari COULD have done a LOT better job with this game, even if they didn't increase it to 8K, and was more concerned about just rushing the game out the door. Never a good thing when a company does that.

[+Cafeman]

There was no defending Pac-Man 2600 back in the day - it sucked. take everything about the coin-op that made it so popular, and remove it, and you've got 2600 Pac-Man.

 

2600 conversions were often bad. Donkey Kong was perceived as much better than Pac-man, but it was disappointing too. Defender 2600 ? It was awesome even though the ship disappeared when you fired (making the game easier) and you had to go below the city to pull off a smart bomb since you only had 1 button to use. But I don't remember being disappointed with it until I got the 5200 Defender which blew me away, as did all 5200 games.

 

But 2600 Pac-man always sucked. I was in constant amazement at how sucky. I blame not the programmer so much but Atari corporation for not providing the resources to do a better job - they proved how good it could be with Ms Pac-man 2600 .

 

You can't just blame the 4k memory limit. Surely the maze could have been more arcade-perfect - and even the right COLOR - even with the short development time allowed? Decisions were made to speed the project along , bad decisions. Has anyone ever examine the Pac-Man 4k code and identified where all the memory went, since it couldn't have been spent on graphics and sound?

[NE146]

Has anyone ever examine the Pac-Man 4k code and identified where all the memory went, since it couldn't have been spent on graphics and sound?

 

Nukey picked it apart to make the much improved 8k version of the Atari version of Pacman so he would probably be the one.

 

And by the way, if anyone here hasn't tried his hack, the fact that the colors are corrected, and Pacman can point UP or DOWN, makes the Atari version a pretty good port after all to play after all. I mean come on, the pic alone speaks volumes.

 

[Nukey Shay]

Actually, an inordiante amount of romspace was spent on GFX - the game uses 3 sub-kernels to draw the maze...repeating the same section so it's used 4 times ultimately did not save anything above drawing it complete from top-to-bottom, since the monster's pen needed to be in the middle. IIRC, this led to bloat in the AI routines too.

Sound FX were obviously done at a late point of development when romspace was tight.

 

About the side door of the monster pen...this was done because the tunnel was vertical (the same method that early ripoffs like Bpuck/Snoggle used - turning the arcade maze on it's side so that it is proportionally the same). So that can be excused. You can actually place the "door" of the pen wherever you want by changing a few values.

 

 

 

I found a little more respect for Frye when hacking the game. I know what he was trying to do with it...it's just that a few elements did not mesh well. Had more romspace been available, the routines are easily polished (tho true...if he had 8k to begin with, we'd all be playing a completely different game). But as mentioned, this game was not a rush job.

[VectorGamer]

In reality, you cannot hang the failure on Frye's shoulders. It was Atari's failure.

 

And I think the "if you take the game for what it is and not compare it to anything" argument is weak. When Pac-Man 2600 was released, how was it possible to not compare it to arcade Pac-Man? Even now, when just about everyone knows who Pac-Man is?

 

If it isn't supposed to be compared to arcade Pac, then they should've given it another name.

[edweird13]

I know when I got the game I was 12 years old and very disappointed that I wasted one of my christmas gifts on this pile of crap. I played it for about a month and that's it. I was glad that I had gotten Defender also otherwise it would have been a very bad christmas.

[SoulBlazer]

I had Defender also as a kid. Yes, it has it's flaws (not being able to see the ship most of the game and the fact you had to sink below the city to use your smart bomb) but I was much happier with this port. For the 2600, it was quite good. THIS is a example of how a port can be adjusted for the 2600 and still be a lot of fun and faithfull to the arcade version.

[Rik]

In reality, you cannot hang the failure on Frye's shoulders. It was Atari's failure.

 

And I think the "if you take the game for what it is and not compare it to anything" argument is weak. When Pac-Man 2600 was released, how was it possible to not compare it to arcade Pac-Man? Even now, when just about everyone knows who Pac-Man is?

 

If it isn't supposed to be compared to arcade Pac, then they should've given it another name.

I get where you're coming from, but i also see it this way.I believe the quote "if you take the game for what it is and not compare it to others" is a fair one.It's like thinking since i have "MAME" then what's the point in playing any other version on any console since MAME is arcade perfect, might as well throw away all my consoles and games. There are a zillion versions of any one game but each has it's own charm, and i believe that is true for 2600 Pac-Man.Who cares if 2600 Pac-Man doesn't measure up to other versions, for "ME" it's a fun game anyways.

[Skylark68]

I take it for what it is and it's a pretty decent game.

 

Defender was pretty good too, but IMO the best port that Atari made for its system is Missile Command with Asteroids being a close 2nd. Berzerk is an excellent port but it was never one of my favorite games. Centipede is decent as well, but again, not one of my favorites.

[NE146]

In reality, you cannot hang the failure on Frye's shoulders. It was Atari's failure.

 

And I think the "if you take the game for what it is and not compare it to anything" argument is weak. When Pac-Man 2600 was released, how was it possible to not compare it to arcade Pac-Man? Even now, when just about everyone knows who Pac-Man is?

 

If it isn't supposed to be compared to arcade Pac, then they should've given it another name.

I get where you're coming from, but i also see it this way.I believe the quote "if you take the game for what it is and not compare it to others" is a fair one.It's like thinking since i have "MAME" then what's the point in playing any other version on any console since MAME is arcade perfect, might as well throw away all my consoles and games. There are a zillion versions of any one game but each has it's own charm, and i believe that is true for 2600 Pac-Man.Who cares if 2600 Pac-Man doesn't measure up to other versions, for "ME" it's a fun game anyways.

 

On that note, if you try out Pacmame (which I think is still around) you could get the 2600 graphics on the arcade game engine and have kind of the best of both worlds

 

"Pac 2600"

 

 

 

"MsPac 2600"

[toiletunes]

Given a choice between Atari2600 PacMan or Arcade Pacman, I'll take the arcade everyday. But compare the 2600 to those battery-powered tabletop blippy things with the whine audio, and the 2600 doesn't look so bad after all.

[+Cafeman]

I have read about Nukey's 8k Pac-man but I can't remember if I ever actually played it. There's only so much time in each week, and I've been so pre-occupied with the 5200 front that I'm STILL catching up on popular 2600 topics. Like, I just read there is a 2600 boulderdash game coming out here!

[edweird13]

The ghost names on Pac 2600 really describe the initial emotions I had towards this game lol