PAC MAN!

	The StarSoldier GAME OF THE MONTH COLLECTION! *PAC MAN*
Artist touch: The characters look kinda of funny especially since Pac Man has legs but they work. Cover art rating: 7/10	Month it won: September 2005 (Namco/Midway, 1980)	Special note: Pac Man was perhaps the first ever marketable video game character! He has graced cereal boxes, he got his own music album (Pac Man Fever), various toys, a board game, he even had his own TV show and lots more!

Introduction and Story:

If anyone is a fan of my little website here (all 12 of you) then maybe you remember when I gave Ms. Pac Man Game of the Month a few years back? In that old review I said that when September 2005 arrived I joking said that Pac Man would win the GOTM. I honestly didn't believe this site would last this long (I thought it would turn into a porn site myself, eh?) but since it survived and since I said it would make it GOTM, here is the one and only Pac Man!

Pac Man is the original 1980's legend that took the video game industry to a whole new level. Pac Man's creator's, Toru Iwatani, actually got the idea for the legendary character by eating a pizza with some of the slices missing, he wondered what if the roles were reversed and the pizza itself was hungry? Pac Man is born!

Controls and Game Play:

The objective in the game is simple: you are a little round yellow creature named Pac Man, and you must complete the level be eating up at the dots on the screen while avoiding the 4 pesky ghosts Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, that are trying to hunt him down. The 4 ghosts each act differently like Blinky (Red) is the aggressive guy, Pinky (Pink) is the sneaky one and is quite smart, Inky (Blue) can scare easily if you look at him and is not too smart, and Clyde (Orange) acts randomly and is the dumbest of the four but he can still get mad. Blinky and Pinky are the ones to watch out for because they always seem to know where Pac Man is on the board but as Pac Man moves from level to level they all get more cleaver. As you finish each level the game gets slightly faster each time and it here's were the real fun starts.

Thankfully for our brave hungry hero that he can eat one of four corner flashing power pellets so he can become the hunter now on the those rotten ghosts and eat them for points but only for a short time, be careful after the ghost have been eaten because they can easily regenerate themselves thanks to the center gate and they are going to be pretty angry. The now eatable dark blue ghosts even give you more bonus points as you eat more than one. As you eat each ghost the points you earn are doubled so it's 200pts for the first, 400pts for the second, 800pts for the third, and a huge 1600pts for the last but you should also know that the ghosts will run away after you got that power pellet so eating them all is not as easy as it sounds and in the later levels the time you have to eat the ghost gets shorter and shorter.

Graphics and Sounds:

Since this is the first Pac Man game, there is only one maze throughout the entire game and the characters are cute and cartoon like but that all can get a little boring visually to the modern gamer. You can rest assure however that this is way better looking then Atari's Pac Man for the 2600, that old Coleco Table Top Pac Man, and many other rushed portable Pac Man's too.

Like the graphics, the sound's are all fittingly cute. Pac Man makes the constant waka-waka sound that gets faster and faster as the more he eats. Pac Man also makes a sound as he munches on each pellet, or ghost. There are cool sounds for the original start up music, the intermission jiggle, and the death scene music is here too. It's all very cool sounding for what's there.

The Bottomline:

"Ohya, it's the original mega hit we all know and love!" The game is famous for its cute graphics, fun sounds, and who could forget the interesting and challenging game play that turned Pac Man into a timeless legend. Pac Man and his ghost enemies were also some of the first ever video game characters to be marketable thanks to their clever designs and the dude even had his own breakfast cereal and cartoon show. The cereal was awesome, the show was crap.

OK, this maze game may be super old but the game play is still as addictive as ever and the game has been ported to countless consoles and other devices so it's super easy to find too. Heck, that Billy Mitchel guy got crazy popular after he finally got a perfect score and finished the 250 plus stages. If you never played it before you are one stupid, pathetic loser that deserves to be made fun of.

Conclusion:
PAC MAN overall rating: 80/100 Find this game on eBay here! For 1 player only graphics: 4/10 sound: 4/10 gameplay: 4/10 replay: 8/10 -StarSoldier1 (Ryan Genno) 2005 See the other Games of the Month