Category: GameFAQs Reviews

CENTIPEDE is a well-known 1980 arcade classic from Atari, where you have to fend off against the eponymous Centipede and its hordes of minions. It’s a tremendously enjoyable affair, became a hit, and was eventually ported to several home video gaming systems. The version were going to be looking at today is the Atari 7800 iteration and this is actually a pretty good port of Centipede on the Atari 7800.

Of course, this isn’t a perfect port in regards to gameplay; the original Centipede arcade game used a trackball as its main input for controlling your bug blaster thing, whereas on the Atari 7800, you were using the stock 7800 joystick or equivalent controller and there’s no trackball support for this version of Centipede. For the most part, control in Centipede is a pretty solid and simple affair. No real complaints in this department. It’s really no different from almost any other home conversion of Centipede you’d find on the market. It works, it’s responsive, it suits your needs just fine. Nothing more to add on that count.

Gameplay is pretty much the same familiar Centipede; clear away the mushrooms and kill off the Centipede segments for points, as well as spiders and other critters looking to make life difficult for you. Nothing new or different in that regard; you also have difficulty select in the grand tradition of Atari 7800 homeports, so if you’re having a bit of trouble, turn it down a notch. Nobody will know…

The game has some rather nice graphics and closely matches the visuals of the arcade original, save from minor rough edges… but still, it looks pretty nice. This is different from what was done the 7800 port of Asteroids, where the traditional vector-based space rocks were replaced with actual well-rounded space rocks… with craters… and smooth animation. But Centipede looks really good. Just about the only improvement made to the game is that everything looks a tad bigger – probably to fill the screen considering the arcade’s vertical screen doesn’t lend itself too well to horizontal home televisions, but it looks good. I can’t really complain.

As for the sound, it has all the sounds of Centipede and it sounds pretty good. Not much more to say that that; I’ve got no issues with the sound.

It goes without saying that Centipede is an enjoyable yet challenge arcade shooter. Easy to pick up, simple to understand, and yet difficult to conquer. The Atari 7800 version of Centipede does a superb job of bringing the action, overcoming the lack of a trackball controller with its solid traditional controls. This is just another in a long line of excellent arcade conversions on the Atari 7800, which was one of the main strengths of the system. Centipede is a great game, loads of fun, worth a look if you own a 7800.

PROS:
– Solid conversion of Centipede with multiple difficulty settings.
– Controls well with the stock joystick or gamepad

CONS:
– No trackball support

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

Fun for a while… but not much else.

This is sort of an odd thing because my first exposure to Hat Trick was not the original arcade game, but rather the odiously flawed conversion on the Atari 7800. To make a long story short, the game boasted choppy animation, flawed controls, and was basically outclassed by other hockey games available in 1987.

The original Hat Trick arcade game, which I did play once or twice during a road trip several years ago, is a far cry from that 7800 conversion by a considerable margin… which should come as no surprise considering an arcade board should be more capable than a home video game system.

Continue reading “GameFAQS Review – Hat Trick (Arcade)”

Originally developed by John Newcomer and released to arcades in 1982, Joust is one of those games that I can honestly say is an all-time favorite of mine. I never played the game in its original arcade format; my first experience with Joust was on the Atari 7800 ProSystem and even today, it’s perhaps my favorite incarnation of Joust ever – so I figure “Why not take a look at this classic game on the 7800?” So here we are.

Now I’ve played a number of different versions of Joust; the Game Boy Color version, the emulated version that’s on the Midway Arcade Treasures disc, the version that plays on the Williams’ Arcade’s Greatest Hits cartridge for Super NES, and even the NES version of Joust, which I don’t particularly like all that much… but still, I picked up that version because… well, I like Joust… even if I’m not particularly any good at it. I mean, I do alright for the most part, but it’s a case of sometimes I do good and sometimes I do bad… but despite that, I have a good time with it and when all is said and done, isn’t that the most important thing about a video game? Having fun?

Now if you have never played Joust, then you’re going to Hell. But in any case, the object is to clear the screen of other bird riders by knocking them off their birds with either your lance or your bird’s bottom, all the while preventing the same thing from happening to you. Your main control scheme is the joystick to guide your bird and a flap button to take to the skies. Pressing the button rapidly causes you to fly faster, but makes it more difficult to slow down. This gives the game a sense of momentum that you have to take into account when planning your attack and one of the things that makes Joust a tough game to get into. But that makes it all the more satisfying.

Now as you progress, your opponents will be a tad more aggressive, platforms will disintegrate from sight and give you less cover, and you’ll even have to fend off against the fearsome Pterodactyl who will pick yo off unless you are lucky enough to slay the beast. Every fifth wave is an Egg wave, where you collect eggs before they hatch. At times, you’ll have Survival Waves, where you get a bonus if you survive a wave, and every 20,000 points nets you an extra life. If you play really well early on, you can accumulate lives before you eventually lose them all in the later waves… see? Good times had by all.

The 7800 was given a fantastic port of Joust, retaining almost everything that made the game a fun experience in the arcade. The control is responsive and pretty easy to work with. The gameplay is fast and furious with virtually no instances of slowdown or lag. All the little touches of the arcade game, the survival waves, the little quotations, the bird flying off when you kill its rider, Buzzard Bait, that sort of thing. Retained rather nicely. Nothing has been altered for the sake of alterations; this is Joust in perhaps its purest form on the 7800 and it plays brilliantly.

You have a choice of four different difficulty settings which is a nice handy option for those who find the default difficulty to be a little overwhelming or perhaps underwhelming. Although, at times, I often found myself performing extremely well in the Expert skill setting, sometimes even better than if I were playing on the Novice setting… strange, that. And the visuals in this 7800 port of Joust is actually pretty damn impressive. In fact, barring the faded colors and blocky nature of the graphics, the game almost looks near-arcade-perfect if you squint your eyes enough. It’s just that good looking.

Just about the only thing that’s missing from Joust on the 7800 is the arcade game’s fancy typeface, which is replaced with the generic blocky font found in most games on 7800, but this isn’t a huge loss and doesn’t take anything away from the game. The sound itself is actually pretty good on the 7800, somewhat resembling the sounds of the arcade original, albeit in a more degraded format. But still this is pretty solid stuff, audio-wise. I’ve no complaints in this regard.

Out of all the individual releases of Joust among the 8-bit systems, the Atari 7800 seems to be the best one of the bunch. What it lacks in sound quality and fonts, it makes up for with graphics which closely resemble the arcade game, fluid control, multiple difficulty levels, and gameplay that stays true to what made Joust a great arcade game. If you wanted a game that perfectly sold the Atari 7800’s strength in bringing home top-notch arcade conversions, look no further than Joust. It’s perhaps one of the few games that makes it worth owning an Atari 7800 ProSystem and, barring any of the compilation versions or Xbox live iterations of recent years, this is probably the version to get. A very good game. If you haven’t played it, you’re missing out on something great. Well worth the time.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 10/10 (Close to arcade perfect mimicry, no flicker, no problem)
Sounds: 10/10 (Closely matches the sounds of the arcade, impressive considering the sound processing)
Gameplay: 10/10 (Controls work wonders, gameplay true to the arcade original, tons of fun)
Challenge: 10/10 (Selectable skill setting so any player can get into it, solid learning curve, simple to get into)
Replay Value: 10/10 (Loads of fun to be had with this game, even better with a friend)

OVERALL: 10/10

I’ll be honest here; I had no preconceptions or expectations going into Legend of Kunoichi when I had downloaded it. It’s a fairly inexpensive piece of software – being that it’s part of the PSP Mini line of cheap downloadable titles – and I figured, “Hey, cheap software that I can afford. This can’t be all that bad, can it?”

And for what it is, it’s not all that bad. It’s just not enough.

Legend of Kunoichi is essentially Whack-A-Mole with ninjas. The main goal is to toss hammers at ninjas while allowing your Shogun leader to escape their menacing wrath, which apparently involves popping out of the floor. You do this by pressing the button that corresponds with the hole that the ninja is popping out of and must do this until ninjas catch up with your Shogun or until your Shogun escapes. You’ll have to be quick to whack those moles… er, I mean ninjas before they escape and you have to be cautious as to not whack the pink ninjas wearing wooden helmets, as they’ll deflect the hammers back at you and stun you momentarily. You have two difficulty settings (NORMAL and HARD) and your score appears on a Rankings chart (nothing that goes online, I’m afraid).

And that’s all there is to it. Really, that’s the whole game. No extra modes, no real substance of any kind to be found anywhere in the game, and while there is a difficulty setting per se, Legend of Kunoichi is not all that difficult once you get the hang of it. It’s just Whack-A-Mole… except with Ninjas and not much else. Just goes to show that ninjas can’t make everything awesome… and that is shameful.

The overall presentation is not even worth mentioning; the graphics are somewhat of a step-up from what you find on a Playstation-One, but still look pretty weak and generic. You have an optional retro-screen which adds scanlines, but that doesn’t make the game any more retro; it just looks slightly darker and if I wanted darker, I use the backlight function on the PSP to lower the lighting. The sound is also pretty generic and repetitive. Nothing special.

For $2.99 plus tax, you’re certainly getting a quick game in Legend of Kunoichi. Unfortunately, that’s about all you’re getting in Legend of Kunoichi. This is a purchase that should only be made if you have some spare change laying around and don’t mind blowing it on a quick time-waster. Don’t get me wrong; Legend of Kunoichi does the job well and it’s certainly good for a quick game or two. But given that there are many other viable options for the PSP out there even in the Mini line, this game won’t see much play all that often. Unless you can spare the change, don’t bother with this one.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 4/10 (barely above PS1 levels, rather bland looking)
Sound: 4/10 (overall generic and repetitive, nothing special)
Gameplay: 4/10 (controls work fine, but gameplay is slow and chunky)
Challenge: 3/10 (offers two levels of difficulty, but it’s honestly not all that difficult)
Replay Value: 2/10 (extremely barebones even for a PSP Mini Release)

OVERALL: 4/10

Demon Attack was a subject of legal debate back in the day when Atari sued Imagic due to the alleged similarities between Demon Attack and Phoenix, a Taito arcade game ported to the Atari 2600 by Atari. Maybe some people might notice the similarities between the two, but I never did. Unless the similarity is they’re both space shooters… oh well, in any case, the two settled and Demon Attack would become a favorite… and for good reason because it’s a great game.

Demon Attack is one of those childhood favorites that I used to play constantly back in the days when I had my Atari 7800 (the system nobody got despite have some decent titles and backwards compatibility with the 2600 library) and even today is still a generally enjoyable game that follows an all-too-simple-and-familiar premise; aliens or rather “demons” are attacking you and you have to destroy them all to move on to the next level. Do well clearing the wave of demons and you earn an extra life (and this will happen often during the initial stages of the game.)

It’s a fairly simple premise that is rather easy to follow, but as you progress farther into the game, the demons become more difficult and more cunning, introducing a couple new abilities such as splitting into two smaller demons when you shoot them as well as streaming lasers that follow their position, making them increasingly more difficult to dodge. It’s a nice way to vary it up.

Graphically speaking, Demon Attack is fairly good looking. Any time an Atari video game pulls off a gradient background in the form of anything – be it a sky or in this case, the floor – I’m easily swayed to say it looks good. Fortunately, the variety of demons you encounter in this game look decisively menacing in this 2600 format and don’t come off as choppy in terms of animation despite having few frames. It’s certainly helps that the pulsing ambient background noise helps to add to the menacing atmosphere of the overall game, with the tempo rising as more demons are slain.

Now like most 2600 titles, Demon Attack has a variety of alternate modes. Usually, these make the games more difficult or some other curve ball variation. The most intriguing aspect is the 2-player alternating mode, where control of the ship alternates between the two players at pre-determined intervals. It’s a mode that keeps the tension up as both players have to be on the ready once they gain control of the ship, lest they be destroyed by the demons’ attack. It’s actually a nice little feature that I wouldn’t mind seeing in more modern games today.

Overall, if you have an Atari 2600 or 7800 for that matter, enjoy space shooters, and haven’t had the chance to play Demon Attack yet, then I highly suggest you do so. It’s fairly cheap these days and it’s a ton of fun. If you don’t have an Atari, the game is also available on the Activision Anthology set that was released for Playstation-2 several years ago. Either way, Demon Attack is a solid space shooter and a great time to be had by all.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (gradient floor and menacing demons are top notch)
Sound: 8/10 (nice demonic-sounding ambient background noise, individual effects also decent)
Gameplay: 9/10 (classic shooter format with some neat 2-player alternating formats)
Challenge: 7/10 (demons adapt with new techniques every few levels, keeping the game fresh and challenging)
Replay Value: 5/10 (if you’re into classic shooters, you can’t go wrong)

OVERALL: 8/10

Castlevania: The Adventure for the original Game Boy was basically a stripped-down version of a typical Castlevania game that you would play on the NES. While the lack of familiar enemies and sub-weapons didn’t necessary hurt the game, the sluggish controls and overall sloppy game mechanics did. The end result is a game that is frustratingly difficult and considered to be more of a test of patience than an actual source of video entertainment.

Fast forward to 2009; Konami had already released Gradius ReBirth and Contra ReBirth, brand new downloadable titles for WiiWare that plays more like the classic entries in those franchises with smattering . Naturally, a Castlevania ReBirth would follow, but rather than being a new game, it is a theoretical remake of the original Game Boy non-classic. But make no mistake; while it is based on the original Adventure in terms of story and setting, it is more a return to the classic old-school style of Castlevania that made the series great before Symphony of the Night came along.
And it is a wonderful return to form.

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)”

Fun little trivia: prior to your purchasing of Star Soldier R, there’s a little warning letting you know that the game comprises nothing more of 2 modes: one mode lasting 2-minutes and 1 level and a second mode lasting 5 minutes and 2 levels. And there’s also a quick shot mode that gauges how fast you can mash a button. That screen, right there, tells you everything you need to know about the game. There’s no campaign to play through, there’s no hidden secrets to discover, and there’s no storyline to follow. The object of the game is to score points and hopefully make onto an online leaderboard. And that’s it.

For the most part, the fact that they were nice enough to give you a brief-but-detailed description of the game’s actual content is rather helpful in determining whether it’s worth your 800 Wii Points. For those looking for storylines or a long enduring gaming experience, turn away now because that’s not what this game is all about. Not at all. It’s about how many points you can score within a short amount of time and how your score compares with everyone else in the world or in your own country. Beyond that, this is a really lightweight package that won’t appeal to anyone looking for intertwining stories and 20 hour gameplay sessions.

So all that’s left are those who are big fans of space shooters and enjoy leaderboards. Is this worth 800 Wii Points? Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Star Soldier R is (at the time of writing) the latest entry in the long-running Star Soldier series of shooters by Hudson Soft. As previously mentioned, the game is fairly lightweight, comprising of the aforementioned two Time Attack modes (or Caravan modes, as it’s usually called) and Quick Shot modes. During these two modes, you have an unlimited number of lives and can die as many times as you would like, but must complete the game’s two levels within that amount of time, while the while racking as high of a score as you can by blowing up as much crap as humanly possible. Once time expires, your score is tallied and ranked with the rest of the world to see how well (or how badly) you fare.

That’s it, that’s all.

You’ve got a couple methods of controlling your ship; either with the Wii Remote, Wii Remote & Nunchuk combination, or Classic Controller. These work fairly well, but I found that using the Classic Controller works best with this game. The Nunchuk configuration is somewhat awkward after a while and the Wii Remote’s D-Pad is the best ever devised. With the Classic Controller, everything seems to work well. The game itself is typical Star Soldier fare; you can collect power-ups to increase the amount of bullets you shoot, force pods to defend your ship or attack others, and you can even control your speed. In that respect, Star Soldier R does follow the series’ legacy rather well.

Graphically speaking, Star Soldier R looks fairly good with some crisp visuals and effects, but nothing amazing or mindblowing. They’re not an eyesore, to say the least. There’s virtually nothing in terms of slowdown or clipping issues – as far as I’ve seen thus far. The sound in Star Soldier R is not great… don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, but it’s merely average. Indeed, past Star Soldier games have had much better background music and it’s unfortunate that the music here isn’t on par with previous titles. But that’s okay.

Overall, Star Soldier R is best suited for those who are obsessed with rankings and leaderboards, since that’s pretty much the whole point of the game. If you’re a fan of shooters or Star Soldier specifically, you’ll probably want to give this game a go for a quick fix of SHMUPing action – and in terms of a quick fix, that’s Star Soldier R’s main specialty. The only gripe is that the lightweight nature of the game does very little to actually justify the 800 Wii Point price tag, but then again, it does gives you ample warning and what it does offer is done rather well.

Recommended for shooter fans, leaderboard fans, and those with money to burn.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (Everything looks solid and crisp – no slowdown or clipping)
Sound: 6/10 (Pretty generic background music, but otherwise sounds okay. Nothing to complain about really.)
Gameplay: 7/10 (Various control methods, tried-and-true Star Soldier gameplay still holds up well)
Challenge: 6/10 (Levels themselves are moderately difficult at best – it’s all about the points, baby)
Replay Value: 5/10 (Depends how obsessed you are with leaderboards and rankings)

OVERALL: 7/10

Sonic Classic Collection, the latest collection and re-releasing of classic 2D Sonic games from Sega, comprises the first four Sonic titles on Sega Genesis; the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles. In addition to these games, you also have the lock-on variant games Knuckles in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles openly accessible from the start without having to unlock them after meeting certain conditions. Along with those games, you have a rather modest collection of Sonic-related illustrations that have been featured in countless other Sonic compilations as well as various other sources… including the Internet.

And that’s about it. No extra games or hidden features. What you see is what you get with Sonic Classic Collection and for the most part, this is actually not too bad. It more than makes up for the shoddy GBA port of Sonic 1.

Now it should be noted that these games aren’t port overs – they are basically a set of ROMs running off an emulator. As such, there might be cases of graphical blurring or some slowdown issues. But that doesn’t really distract from the gameplay unless you’ve logged in many hours on the original Genesis cartridges. All the Sonic games included play, look, and sound pretty much the same way as they did way back when… and for the most part, the games control rather well with the DS Lite’s dinky D-Pad. It’s a fairly decent emulator with no major complaints on my part.

It should be noted that the ROMS for Sonic 2 and 3 (and 3 & Knuckles) have been altered somewhat to remove the two player mode and option menus. This means a lack of multiplayer options, restricting the games to a single player experience only – which will no doubt disappoint some player hoping for quick 2-player games. Also, the removal of menus makes it more difficult (almost impossible) for the old cheat codes to be implemented, forcing you to “tough it out” the old-fashioned way. This may or may not bother some people.

Another annoying aspect is that the pause function is on the touch screen rather than mapped to the Start Button or any other button on the handheld. It’s not a crippling issue, but it’s a truly awkward implementation of something as simple as a pause button. Oh well.

Also in the case of Sonic & Knuckles, its unique and dramatic mid-boss theme was replaced with the messy mid-boss theme from Sonic 3. Strange.

To make up for the changes, a quick save function was implemented to the Sonic games that didn’t originally have one (i.e. Sonic 1 & 2, Sonic and Knuckles, and Knuckles in Sonic 2). This essentially allows you to save your progress and restart at the beginning of the last act you saved at. I haven’t fully tested this, but the quick save function does save any Chaos Emeralds you may have collected along the way. The sole drawback is one save per game, but that seems to work fine.

As Sonic 3 and its lock-on cousin already have save functions, they didn’t get the quick-save function, but that’s alright. They work just fine as is.

Overall, this is a fairly solid collection of Sonic games that show the series’ high point and in all honesty, Sonic on the go is always a good thing. Those who were long-burned by Sega’s butchering of the GBA port of the original Sonic many moons ago will find that Sonic Classic Collection does a fairly good job in redeeming the stain from Sega’s sleeve. Even though they’re merely emulated versions, I suppose that’s the best we could hope for in regards to maintaining the purity of the classic Sonics. Given the last time Sega attempted to port over classic Sonic to a Nintendo handheld, this collection more than makes up for it.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (true to the Genesis originals – although some blurring may occur)
Sound: 7/10 (some minor audio issues and one changed tune, but otherwise well accurate)
Gameplay: 8/10 (classic Sonic fun plays good – missing multiplayer and sound test)
Challenge: 7/10 (all the Sonic games offer a fair, moderate challenge – seeking Emeralds is also fun)
Replay Value: 7/10 (lack of multiplayer disappointing, but Sonic games are still fun)

Around August 2008, I picked up a used Dreamcast and several games along with it. Among the crop of games I got was Fighting Force 2. Of course, when I saw the game, I was ignorant of all the bad press it got… So I pop the game in the Dreamcast and for some reason the bloody thing didn’t read. It just kept going to the Dreamcast menu screen thing. So in any case, for reasons I have yet to comprehend (and yes, the disc was thoroughly cleaned), I couldn’t play the game. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise or divine intervention. Doesn’t matter now. All I know is that among the small library of games, I had one dud in my collection.

Now as luck would have it, someone had a working copy of Fighting Force 2. And given that I really wanted to see for myself if I missed anything despite the bad press, I borrowed his copy and gave it a go. A couple days later, I returned the copy of the game and offered my friend a box of matches and a small container so he could burn the game away as well as the sin of having picked it up.

Yeah, that should tell you everything about my thoughts on Fighting Force 2 and I could end the review right here. But I’ll keep going.

For the most part, Fighting Force 2 takes the rather harmless-but-ultimately-boring gameplay mechanics of the original Fighting Force and shoves it down the proverbial black hole of doom to regurgiate the awful mess we’re stuck with today. Instead of four different characters with varying stats and attacks, you’re stuck with one character and he moves like a turtle… quite possibly slower than that. To make up for the slow speed, your character has the ability to make everything he touches explode into a ball of flames after a few hits. What sense does this make? Absolutely none. Does it help my chances? Of course not.

And for some odd reason, the exploding chairs yield weapons such as pipes and guns which can be used against your enemies, who are easily subdued by these weapons that are literally laying all over the place. Indeed, your only real difficulty in Fighting Force 2 lies in the awkward controls, jittery camera (not too bad in large rooms, but problematic in smaller ones), and overall generic gameplay that proves to be a fine test in how long you could fend off boredom.

Looking for a game with great sound? Look elsewhere. While the sound quality on Fighting Force 2 is admittedly crisp and clear for the most part, there’s very few bits of music to be found here and what’s there isn’t all that memorable. The only real positive I could give this game is in the graphics. Aside from some clipping issues, the game looks fairly good… by Playstation standards. By Dreamcast standards… it’s tolerable at best… Perhaps I’m being too critical. The models and environments are neatly rendered, but not much more than that.

It’s truly unfortunate that Eidos and Core dropped the ball in porting over this game over to the Dreamcast. It seems like they just copied-and-pasted a Playstation game onto a GD-ROM disc, did a couple minor touch-ups, and BOOM! Brand new game. Now, I understand a number of Dreamcast games that started off as Playstation games were like this, but it’s hard to believe that the quality was just THIS bad. It seems like whoever was working on this simply didn’t care about the final product.

Anyone who is looking for a good Dreamcast game should not be picking up Fighting Force 2. Anyone looking for a further fix of Fighting Force should just play the first game again. Anyone looking for a fun activity should just stare at the wall… yes, staring at a wall is MORE FUN than Fighting Force 2.

BREAKDOWN
Story: 2/10 (the story is unmemorable and dull – not much to it)
Graphics: 5/10 (the graphics are okay – slightly higher-resolution version of a Playstation game, but that’s about it)
Sound: 2/10 (little music, repetitive grunts and explosions, please make it stop)
Gameplay: 1/10 (touchy, awkward controls – boring gameplay – unstable camera)
Challenge: 2/10 (weapons all over the place make this a cinch to beat – if you want to)
Replay Value: 1/10 (just play the original Fighting Force instead)

OVERALL:1/10

Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 is considered to be the single most disappointing home conversion of an arcade machine in the history of video computer electronic entertainment. No matter how bad any other home port turned out, it didn’t contribute to the near-decimation and annihilation of the North American video game market. Is that a bit of stretch? I’d like to think so, but others do believe this statement and looking at Pac-Man as ported to the 2600, it’s not hard to see why.

While the original Pac-Man was something of a disaster, the same cannot be said for Ms. Pac-Man, which got a fantastic port on the Atari 2600. It still got that strange color scheme with the blue background, but the game somewhat resembles Ms. Pac-Man as it appeared in arcades. The sprites are a little more refined (even though there’s still that flickering issue), the mazes are almost similar enough, there’s fruit bouncing around and not vitamins, the sound effects are fairly close to matching the original sounds (as opposed to the previous port’s strange deviations), and the gameplay and functionality is similar to the arcade version. Everything still looks blocky, there are no dots but dashes, but that’s to be expected considering the system. The important thing is that when you pop this in and you look past the visual differences, you know that you’re playing Ms. Pac-Man and not some perversion of computer programming that tries to pass itself off as genuine.

Much like the arcade version, Ms. Pac-Man sports up to four different mazes, which increases the variety and challenge in the game and is an overall improvement over the original Pac-Man, which only had one static maze. Your main goal is to eat all the dots, lines, whatever the case may be and move onwards. You don’t have the intermission sequences that play every couple levels or so, but the core elements are there and… again, it’s a huge improvement over the previous port… which wasn’t very good.

There’s not much more I can add to the matter; it’s Ms. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 and it’s the port that people wished Pac-Man got. Everything that went wrong in that game is done right here and you can’t ask for more than that. Not mention that this is just a fun game to play. Ms. Pac-Man is a game you can find all over the place and deserves a good home among your Atari library if you have one. Great game, give it a go.

BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 8/10 (more refined sprites, closer accuracy to source material)
Sounds: 7/10 (sounds closer to what you’d get at the arcades)
Gameplay: 8/10 (plays and functions similarly enough to the arcade game)
Challenge: 8/10 (four mazes provides more variety, challenge)
Replay Value: 6/10 (plenty of fun to be had here)

OVERALL: 8/10