Pacman

Publisher: Atari Inc

Designer: Atari Inc

Type: Maze

Platform: Atari 2600

Release Date: 1982

Rating:

I probably shouldn’t be too harsh on the Atari 2600 considering that it not only is an 8-bit machine, but it was also really really popular. The most common joysticks that I found when I was a kid happened to be the Atari joysticks, not that they were good mind you. In fact, they were pretty bad, and quite prone to breaking. However, let us consider this game, which ironically was the most popular game on the machine.

However, imagine driving a car when your breaks don’t work (not that I would encourage you to test it out because you are likely to cause more damage than to). Well, that is what it was like playing this game.

Honestly, I found that once I sent Pacman in a direction it was really, really hard turning corners because, well, he would just go, and go, and then run into a ghost.

Yeah, controlling this game was an absolute nightmare. Sure, maybe it was designed that way to make the game a little harder, not that I can recall playing it on any other machines, at least in the not too distant past. However, I did attempt to play this game, and it was a nightmare, even if it was simply because I couldn’t make sharp turns, stop, or avoid the ghosts.

Anyway, you can find more about this version of Pacman on Wikipedia, and there is also an entry on Pacman’s very own wiki page. Actually, as a point of note, if you type Pacman into Google, you will find a playable Pacman Google doodle.