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Pac-Man Review from 1982


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Atari didn't allow 2600/VCS developers to use black as a background color unless it was a space-themed game.

Regarding this, I just shot a message over to Steve Woita who was there in this time period ('82-'84) and did the 2600 games Quadrun, Taz, Asterix and Garfield during that period. His answer:

 

"That is pure garbage! No one told me to do anything while I was there."

 

He proceeded to also provide his own games Taz/Asterix and Garfield as examples of non-space games with black backgrounds.

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Missile Command = Space themed. The rulebook states the missiles are coming from an interplanetary source. In any event, not all screens have black backgrounds.

 

Centipede and Berzerk = Came After Pac Man, so are mostly irrelevant to the topic.

 

Yar's Revenge = space themed. The Zorlon cannon is on the Yar's homeworld, so the Yar is traversing interplanetary space.

 

However, you do have a point with Dodge 'Em, Haunted House, Basketball, and Video Pinball. I can see Haunted House getting an exception because of the theme. The other three may be too early in the history of the 2600 for the rule to have been born yet.

There is also Breakout, Super Breakout, Backgammon, Warlords, Night Driver, I'm thinking the more logical reason would be Todd's preference. But it was fun combing through Atari games of the time period to see if the theory has logic.

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There is also Breakout, Super Breakout, Backgammon, Warlords, Night Driver, I'm thinking the more logical reason would be Todd's preference. But it was fun combing through Atari games of the time period to see if the theory has logic.

 

You know what? You're winning me over. Still, Breakout is kind of an early game. Night Driver obviously has the whole Night theme going for it. Backgammon is... well, it's Backgammon. I think Warlords and Super Breakout were at least semi the same timeframe as Pac-man. Super Breakout may have gotten around it by being space themed (no shit, check out the cover and manual). But I don't have any excuse for Warlords.

 

So, let's approach this from the other direction.

 

What are some contemporary games of Pac-Man which eschewed black backgrounds?

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Did you guys miss this post?

 

Regarding this, I just shot a message over to Steve Woita who was there in this time period ('82-'84) and did the 2600 games Quadrun, Taz, Asterix and Garfield during that period. His answer:

"That is pure garbage! No one told me to do anything while I was there."

 

He proceeded to also provide his own games Taz/Asterix and Garfield as examples of non-space games with black backgrounds.

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Only on a much loved and classic game like Pac-Man could stir up such debates and passionate arguments. If this was about, say, Airlock, no one would give a damn. :P

 

Still, I've always hated that Atari (indirectly) did such a rush job on Pac-Man for the 2600. Good thing I got a much better port for my C64 a few years later.

 

But to be honest I always preferred Ms. Pac-Man anyway, and at least here the 2600 port is quite good. :)

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Got a response back from Howard on Facebook now as well:

 

Nope. Never heard anything like that.

Marty, you've done a lot of research on Atari, given the books and the insight into the company -- I'm curious to hear from you your thoughts on why Atari kept Pac-Man at 4k and let the game be released in the format that it's in. I'm not sure if it's true that Tod asked for 8k and was denied, but it sure seems the game needed it. My theory is that Atari knew the game would be a huge seller and didn't really care, part of the attitude going on at Atari during the peak years from other things I've read and interviews and what not.

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Marty, you've done a lot of research on Atari, given the books and the insight into the company -- I'm curious to hear from you your thoughts on why Atari kept Pac-Man at 4k and let the game be released in the format that it's in. I'm not sure if it's true that Tod asked for 8k and was denied, but it sure seems the game needed it. My theory is that Atari knew the game would be a huge seller and didn't really care, part of the attitude going on at Atari during the peak years from other things I've read and interviews and what not.

 

I think Atari was completely controlled by 1982 by the attitude of Ray Kassar and Warner Communications. There were too many people in charge that wanted a fast easy buck. Maybe some at HQ thought that video games were still a fad and wanted to make the most money out of the least cash.

 

Warners owned movie and record companies. Didn't the executives learn by then that an Movie or Album that was anxiously awaited by the public, but was a bomb, got bad reviews and left the public disappointed and felt being cheated out of their money could wind up hurting them in the long run?

Edited by WildBillTX
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Marty, you've done a lot of research on Atari, given the books and the insight into the company -- I'm curious to hear from you your thoughts on why Atari kept Pac-Man at 4k and let the game be released in the format that it's in. I'm not sure if it's true that Tod asked for 8k and was denied, but it sure seems the game needed it. My theory is that Atari knew the game would be a huge seller and didn't really care, part of the attitude going on at Atari during the peak years from other things I've read and interviews and what not.

 

I'm no expert, but I agree with you. They knew that because it's Pac-Man that it would sell no matter what they released, so they cut corners.

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The most I'm willing to accept is that Todd felt the flicker would be okay because they were ghosts. No one goes into the development of an arcade port with "flickery enhancements" in mind. It's like saying the original tune was too complicated so Todd decided Doot-Doot-Doot-Doot was much better and sounded more ghost-like.

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The most I'm willing to accept is that Todd felt the flicker would be okay because they were ghosts. No one goes into the development of an arcade port with "flickery enhancements" in mind. It's like saying the original tune was too complicated so Todd decided Doot-Doot-Doot-Doot was much better and sounded more ghost-like.

The arcade sounds were boring, so he improved on them. The involuntary wincing from the sound effects makes the game more exciting. Let's try an experiment. Set up a mirror before you start the game. Press the fire button and look in the mirror. See the grimace? That look of pain and displeasure means the game is having more of an emotional effect than the boring old crappy arcade version. You should be bowing down before Tod Frye and kissing his feet for all of the things he did to make the game so much better than the original. :D

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And I don't want to beat up Todd. It's obvious there were pressures on him. It's just that even when you have one-man game teams you need some sort of directional oversight. Take massive creative license on the original titles, not the arcade games people are jonesing to have at home.

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There were too many people in charge that wanted a fast easy buck.

 

Yes, so they kinda got what was coming to them when the whole thing crashed. Perhaps this is a lesson for future businesses to be more cautious when things start going gangbusters?

Edited by Gregory DG
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IIRC from reading other posts on this forum, Atari developers had to follow a strict "no black background unless it's a space game" rule. That meant they'd need to use a blue background. Which meant that the maze wall couldn't be too close to that shade of blue.

 

Has anyone ever hacked Pac man just so the colours match the arcade, leaving the other flaws such flickering alone..?

This. Seriously. Even at 15Hz, the ghosts would have shown up well on a black background. They could have used red or pink for the ghost flicker and pale blue for the walls, or pale yellow (the pellets still had to match the walls as I don't believe Atari had enough room on the ROM at the time to interlace the colors like 4k and new pacman do). The ghosts could have turned pale blue when frightened, and even with 25% duty cycle when flickering, they would have been highly visible against a black background. I mean changing the colors to better match the arcade would literally require editing three or four bytes within the ROM.

 

And why did they insist on making it two player? Single player would have worked very well and there were plenty of Atari games that were only playable with one joystick. ET being one of them, but I'm sure single player Atari games existed prior to Pacman's release. Atari should have used the "rules" as general design guidelines, and programmers should have been able to bend the rules with permission, if necessary to develop a better game. Look at how great Activision's games were, possibly because their rulebook wasn't as constrained as Atari's say nothing of consisting of former Atari programmers. And all or most of Activision's games were flicker free, I believe.

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Yes, so they kinda got what was coming to them when the whole thing crashed. Perhaps this is a lesson for future businesses to be more cautious when things start going gangbusters?

 

Absolutely... to me Atari is the most legendary game console company for not just for creating the first successful game console, but also for what they also did wrong. Lots of big mistakes were made because they were the first to experience and make them.

 

Nintendo, Sega.. Microsoft have made huge mistakes but what they did are not as legendary as the stories of what Atari did to sink their company.

Edited by WildBillTX
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Absolutely... to me Atari is the most legendary game console company for not just for creating the first successful game console, but also for what they also did wrong. Lots of big mistakes were made because they were the first to experience them.

 

Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft have made huge mistakes in the past, but they all survived. And what they did are not as legendary as the stories of what Atari did to sink their company.

 

Out of the three you mentioned, maybe Sega would come in second for some of the mistakes that they made. At least Nintendo and MS still making consoles.

 

Don't forget about Sony either. They did not get off to a good start with the PS3, though I guess things turned out okay in the end,

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