There are very few people out there that have never played Pac-man. I know I played it, whether it was putting coins in an old arcade cabinet or playing the Atari 2600 version I played this game a lot. Pac-man would spawn other arcade titles such as the also famous, Mrs. Pac-man, Super Pac-man and even Baby Pac-man. Each would have differences to the original from the subtle such as a few small differences in the maze and the character like in Mrs. Pac-man to the extreme like in Baby Pac where part of the arcade cabinet was a pinball machine. This one was pure simplicity, in a world now full of first person shooters, one learns to appreciate simply going through a maze avoiding the evil ghosts who dwell within.
The game play, as I have stated is simple. You guide Pac-man through a maze. Your objective every time is to clear the maze of dots which you eat. During your travels to eat the dots, you must avoid the deadly ghosts as they try and get Pac-man, seemingly knowing where he is at all times. However, you can turn the tide when you gobble down a special dot that allows you to turn the table on the ghosts and eat them. They do not stay gone, but it can turn the tide in your favor allowing you to grab the last few dots.
The Atari 2600 version of the game is a much weaker animal than the arcade cabinet. I do not really know why it has become so scorned recently, because despite its inferior graphics it still plays nearly the same. They may have been able to smooth over the graphics a bit better, but none of the games from the arcade ever remotely looked like their counterpart on the Atari. I was more disheartened by Donkey Kong as it left out a screen of play in it. So while it does not look like the arcade, it was still a nice way to pass the time. Let's face it, all the arcade cabinet does is play one game, of course it is going to look better.
There have been many spin-offs and such of Pac-man during the years. At his height he had his own cartoon and at one point at the Six Flags in Georgia he even had his own play land (later turned into a looney tunes play land). There have also been other games, there was one in the arcade that was based around the cartoon and was more of a Super Mario type game as you guided Pac-man on a side scrolling quest. I even viewed a short film that was rather humorous as it was from the ghost's perspective. For such a simple character, he has chomped his way into many forms of media.
So there you go, in the game you guide your character through the deadly maze. It takes virtually no knowledge to pick up this game to play it and only minimal skill to do fairly well. As you go, the ghosts become increasingly more difficult to dodge, but even the least skilled gamers of the world can make their way past a board or two. Sometimes it is the simplest things that are the most fun.
The game play, as I have stated is simple. You guide Pac-man through a maze. Your objective every time is to clear the maze of dots which you eat. During your travels to eat the dots, you must avoid the deadly ghosts as they try and get Pac-man, seemingly knowing where he is at all times. However, you can turn the tide when you gobble down a special dot that allows you to turn the table on the ghosts and eat them. They do not stay gone, but it can turn the tide in your favor allowing you to grab the last few dots.
The Atari 2600 version of the game is a much weaker animal than the arcade cabinet. I do not really know why it has become so scorned recently, because despite its inferior graphics it still plays nearly the same. They may have been able to smooth over the graphics a bit better, but none of the games from the arcade ever remotely looked like their counterpart on the Atari. I was more disheartened by Donkey Kong as it left out a screen of play in it. So while it does not look like the arcade, it was still a nice way to pass the time. Let's face it, all the arcade cabinet does is play one game, of course it is going to look better.
There have been many spin-offs and such of Pac-man during the years. At his height he had his own cartoon and at one point at the Six Flags in Georgia he even had his own play land (later turned into a looney tunes play land). There have also been other games, there was one in the arcade that was based around the cartoon and was more of a Super Mario type game as you guided Pac-man on a side scrolling quest. I even viewed a short film that was rather humorous as it was from the ghost's perspective. For such a simple character, he has chomped his way into many forms of media.
So there you go, in the game you guide your character through the deadly maze. It takes virtually no knowledge to pick up this game to play it and only minimal skill to do fairly well. As you go, the ghosts become increasingly more difficult to dodge, but even the least skilled gamers of the world can make their way past a board or two. Sometimes it is the simplest things that are the most fun.