Bryan Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 Pac Man was THE killer license of the day. Atari should not have released it until it was right. At first it looked like the message was, "Do not buy our outdated system. It cannot play today's games." What it actually was was*, "You suckers will buy anything so here's a turd in a budget 4K cart." No passion for excellence at all. *was-was; English sucks sometimes. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 (edited) Pac Man was THE killer license of the day. Atari should not have released it until it was right. At first it looked like the message was, "Do not buy our outdated system. It cannot play today's games." What it actually was was*, "You suckers will buy anything so here's a turd in a budget 4K cart." No passion for excellence at all. *was-was; English sucks sometimes. I totally agree. Atari had an opportunity to release a great game and blew it. People were expecting another Asteroids, Centipede, Missie Command etc. 2600 fans were already getting that "you got suckered" message from all the bad games that were glutting the market. But a LOT of people finally got the message was time to abandon the 2600 when Atari did the same. Edited January 10, 2015 by WildBillTX 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 I totally agree. Atari had an opportunity to release a great game and blew it. People were expecting another Asteroids, Centipede, Missie Command etc. 2600 fans were already getting that "you got suckered" message from all the bad games that were glutting the market. But a LOT of people finally got the message was time to abandon the 2600 when Atari did the same. But you were supposed to abandon it and buy an Atari 5200. If the 5200 wouldn't have been as large as a lawnmower and wouldn't have had weird-ass controllers, their plan might have worked. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 But you were supposed to abandon it and buy an Atari 5200. If the 5200 wouldn't have been as large as a lawnmower and wouldn't have had weird-ass controllers, their plan might have worked. I agree. I remember trying it at a store in 1982 and hated the controllers. My dad bought my family a 2600 in 1981 and there was no way he was going to shell out for another video game system the next year. We did get dad to buy us a Vic-20 and later a C=64. Computers made more sense to him since he was working with them at his office. "You can learn to program on it". Anyway, I think it was a corporate boardroom's idea to intentionally release a bad 2600 version so they could force gamers to buy a 5200 if you wanted to play "real" Pac-Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TitleSeventeen Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Reading this topic this morning inspired me to shove this horrible cart in the Atari, play it for a few minutes,turn it off in disgust. Then go blow the dust off the old TI 99/4A and play a respectable port of Pac-Man. I think it was just another "get it out the door" release. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetset Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Reading this topic this morning inspired me to shove this horrible cart in the Atari, play it for a few minutes,turn it off in disgust. Then go blow the dust off the old TI 99/4A and play a respectable port of Pac-Man. I think it was just another "get it out the door" release. Not to derail the thread, but were there any *truly bad* arcade versions on the TI? I can't think of any! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Not to derail the thread, but were there any *truly bad* arcade versions on the TI? I can't think of any! Nope! I even like Munchmobile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 But you were supposed to abandon it and buy an Atari 5200. If the 5200 wouldn't have been as large as a lawnmower and wouldn't have had weird-ass controllers, their plan might have worked. Maybe, but since Atari was producing 2600 carts in such huge numbers they clearly didn't think there would be much defection at first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 But you were supposed to abandon it and buy an Atari 5200. If the 5200 wouldn't have been as large as a lawnmower and wouldn't have had weird-ass controllers, their plan might have worked. Except that they were STILL selling the 2600 as the primary system. Only reason why people tolerated the "inferior" version is that to play a more accurate port, you had to buy the much more expensive Atari 5200 or 8-bit computer. And if you were a kid then you were just lucky enough for your parents to buy an Atari VCS, a ColecoVision with a VCS adapter was out of the question. Also using the 1982-3 viewpoint was that Atari had both 2600 & 5200 versions of the same game. Yeah you could buy a 5200 (and a trackball) to play Centipede but can't play the games you already own (till their adapter was fixed)...or just get the 2600 cart even though it had sticks for graphics. And we're seeing this now with the same games on both Xbox One and 360 (or PS3 & PS4). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 (edited) I just remembered what happened to my Pacman. First, I was an addict to the arcade game as a kid, so getting the VCS port was very exciting. Then YES, I admit I was "jarred" when I played it and how it was, well.....not really Pacman. But, I took it for what it was (it was the Atari after all.. and I was fully aware that nothing on it was exactly like the arcade). So I got very good at the game.. good enough that I won a contest not long later that centered around VCS Pacman. I got the highest score over several brackets and won another Atari VCS. Anyway one not long after that, my dad was entertaining some dignitary from Jakarta, or somewhere around Indonesia and this guy was looking for a copy of VCS Pacman for his son. They were out of stock everywhere so my dad asked if he could give him our copy and he would buy me another one whenever it became available. I said sure. And you know what, I never asked my dad for a replacement copy. So take it for what you will.. By the way was it only a year later that Ms. Pacman came out? I thought it was a little longer than that.. but my memory sucks. Edited January 13, 2015 by NE146 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 13, 2015 Author Share Posted January 13, 2015 By the way was it only a year later that Ms. Pacman came out? I thought it was a little longer than that.. but my memory sucks. Right, just about a year later. Pac-Man was released in March/April of 1982 and Ms. Pac-Man was released in February of 1983. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 Right, just about a year later. Pac-Man was released in March/April of 1982 and Ms. Pac-Man was released in February of 1983. I wonder how many people initially passed on Ms Pac-Man because of Pac-Man. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 I wonder how many people initially passed on Ms Pac-Man because of Pac-Man. Not me! Never had or wanted 2600 Pac-Man BITD, but was sure to snag Ms. Pac as soon as she was released. The difference was clear right off the bat. Thought Atari (and stores themselves) did a great job rolling her out. What I don't remember seeing until very recently though, was a sticker on early Ms. Pac boxes that said "features hi-res graphics". Glad to own one of those today. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maiki Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 That review is far from professional. I can understand that for being a 1982 article is has its own value but the writer had hardly any deeper knowledge of Atari 2600 capabilities... Because otherwise he wouldn't have just bashed anything in the game... IMO Pac Man for the Atari 2600 has a very good gameplay mechanism but it lacks more optimization in sprites handling (see Ms Pac Man)... You just cannot do graphically the same sort of game on this system (stock Atari 2600)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mef Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 It's a consumer's point of view, not Atari geek. Not to mention that these technical specs are freely available today, but were internal Atari docs at the time, pretty much only for a narrow group of engineers and coders. And for that particular "only judge the outcome" view, it's pretty honest and has its own value. If you could choose which system/port to play, would you still try to justify the overall weak impression of VCS version with technicalities? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 13, 2015 Author Share Posted January 13, 2015 IMO Pac Man for the Atari 2600 has a very good gameplay mechanism but it lacks more optimization in sprites handling (see Ms Pac Man)... You just cannot do graphically the same sort of game on this system (stock Atari 2600)... If they would have given us something like this, there wouldn't have been as many complaints: atariage.com/forums/topic/229152-new-pacman-for-atari-2600/?p=3149006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 (edited) I wonder how many people initially passed on Ms Pac-Man because of Pac-Man. I remember playing it first at an Atari kiosk back in '83 and being super impressed with it. I didn't buy it until a year or two later when it was discounted. It's a great game, but now I find it's too easy, the ghost AI isn't tough enough. Had Atari released an awesome Pac-Man like Dintar's, or PacMan 4K or something close to Rob Kudla's graphics hack ( aka Pac Man Arcade http://atariage.com/hack_page.html?SystemID=2600&SoftwareHackID=5 ) it would have been a big hit. But I dont know in the long run if it would have saved the 2600 and Atari. From my own experiences it was still home computers that caused the videogame crash. Edited January 14, 2015 by WildBillTX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 I wonder how many people initially passed on Ms Pac-Man because of Pac-Man. More like the opposite just from seeing that commercial... I never asked for Pac-Man cause I played it at my cousin's, but after seeing that ad I did the usual "bug my mom" routine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgqE2fwKt4c Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 More like the opposite just from seeing that commercial... I never asked for Pac-Man cause I played it at my cousin's, but after seeing that ad I did the usual "bug my mom" routine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgqE2fwKt4c Just watched the commercial. Wonder what they meant by "...with a style of entertainment that Pac Man never knew!" Sounds almost like an apology. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unbeliever Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 Yeah...sounds like by that commercial they realized the horror and backpedaled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 Just watched the commercial. Wonder what they meant by "...with a style of entertainment that Pac Man never knew!" Sounds almost like an apology. Nah, I don't think they were backpedaling with that statement. Sounds more to me like the boasting of Ms. Pac's new feature set: new prizes that wander around, changing mazes, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 Oh let's not mince words here.. yeah it had some new features from the arcade game, but 2600 Ms. Pacman was an extreme revelation in that it was actually an awesome "Pacman" proper on the VCS vs. the original anomaly. We all knew it and obviously their marketing did too. I remember I didn't see that commercial until I had already bought the game. I saw the box at the store and immediately got excited but I remember wondering "I wonder how it is" and suspected it could be more of the same as VCS Pacman.. i.e. a very primitive watered down version far from the arcade. I was so blown away when I actually played it.. forget that it was really Ms. Pac... something as simple as your character pointing UP or DOWN made all the difference at that time to me. And it had fruits and colored monsters. It seriously made me wonder for years why couldn't have the original Pacman been that way. And that's why in like the late 90's I even did a mockup of how it possibly could have been (Pacman done with the 2600 Ms. Pacman style) and eventually Rob Kudla and I got to emailing each other.. and he ended up hacking it to make the "a better pacman". These were the days before AtariAge/Nexus but man that was awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dauber Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 I mentioned this before, but I wanna see a 2600 Ms. Pac-Man done the same way as the 2600 Pac-Man. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriel Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 So why are Space Invaders and Asteroids so well regarded despite having nearly no look or feel of their arcade counterparts? Like Pac-Man, they feature only the most broad and vague gameplay similarity to their parent inspiration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unbeliever Posted January 14, 2015 Share Posted January 14, 2015 I think the comparison is due to them not being so "different" than their arcade counterparts. Granted, they aren't spot-on arcade translations (like in the case of Space Invaders, for example), but they resemble the arcade forms closer than the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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