Ms. Pac-Man is a remix of Pac-Man when originally Ms. Pac-Man was an upgrade kit for Pac-Man originally called "Crazy Otto" developed by GCC. GCC had a lawsuit against Atari for there Missile Command upgrade kit "Super Missile Command" and in the end GCC had to settle by not producing any upgrade kits without developer permission so GCC decided to show Midway the game. Midway bought the game and made a few changes to it. Changed the title to Ms. Pac-Man and wala!

Pac-Man is a maze game consisting of Pac-Man, and four ghosts. In every level the maze is full of dots that when touched with the front of Pac-Man disappear. Leaving only one answer. Pac-Man is consuming (narcotics... Anyone?) the dots. The four ghosts are Blinky the red ghost, Pinky the pink ghost, Inky the cynober/blue ghost, and Clyde the orange ghost. Blinky starts in the board while the rest are stuck in a box until you collect enough dots then they are released. Collide with a ghost and Pac-Man dies. At the four corners of every maze there are four big flashing dots called energizers (AKA Power Pelets/Pills) and when "consumed" temporarily turn all four ghosts into blue ghost and can be "consumed" them self. When they are eaten all that remains is a pair of eyes which travel back to the center to be "reincarnated". Clear every dot on the screen and advanced to the next level.

This is Ms. Pac-Man. I am assuming this is the wife of the [Narcotic] yellow little circle who can't get enough dots, so to speak.

Not to much has been changed here. Ms. Pac-Man is obviously in place of Pac-Man. The ghost move randomly unlike Pac-Man where people would memorize patterns to avoid death, making Ms. Pac-Man a bit more difficult.

On the side of the board there are usually four tunnels which lead to the other side. Unlike Pac-Man which had two. These tunnels also slow down enemies who travel through it until level three when enemies are no longer affected.

Graphics

I gave a 9 since the graphics are pretty good but they aren't self explanatory enough. A yellow ball with a bow tie on it's head that turns into three fourths of a ball. Dots that blink. Blobs with eyes that do blobby things I guess. They aren't bad compared to other non Namco games.

Sound

Wakawakawaka blipblip blip blip. Yeah, I can make Pac-Man sounds.

Unfortunately the Ms. Pac-Man sounds aren't the same Pac-Man sounds but at least they do a good job at representing your corresponding action like touching dots, or blobs or disintegrating into thin air. But the intro music is so memorable.

Addictiveness

When I think of this same I always think how boring it is until I decide to pop a quarter in and end up throwing down a whole ten just to get the high score. The problem here is right now I am in a hotel and down below they have a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet right next to Galaga and it's bullying me out of my money. Even though every level is pretty much identical I can't stop. WAKAWAKA is pretty damn awesome to listen to while gobbling up everything on the screen! It's like drugs. Actually it IS DRUGS! Drugs are all over the place in Ms. Pac-Man.

I left story empty since the story is so bland it's as if it's not there. Ms, Pac-Man chases Pac-Man. Ms, Pac-Man catches Pac-Man. a stork drops Pac-Man jr. (I wonder what they did in between cut scene.) it's basic and it's only there to give you a break from playing. At least that's what I use it for.

Depth

You will have enough levels to last you. like most golden age arcade games there is a kill screen where the game goes haywire. The last level in Ms, Pac-Man is the 256th level but may glitch out a few levels before. Hell if you can make it to level fifty I think that's enough. however every level feels the same. But it's worth a quarter.

Difficulty

This is a hard guess on an arcade game since there are different difficulty settings that can only be set in what I believe is called the developer console. Only it's a dumbed down version of Developer Console. But compared to Pac-Man this one is a challenge due to semi-random ghost movement.


Closing Comments

You need to play this game on the arcade. The fun part is trying to beat the highscore (and popping in quarters). This game is getting harder to find and for some reason is buddies with Galaga. I know they made a Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga combo but I actually find two separate machines next to each other a lot. Ms, Pac-Man seems more common than Pac-Man now days but in my opinion it can be better. Yet sometimes no matter what you can't beat the original.

tRIUNE :  Could you go through this review and take all the extra spacing out of it? I want to assign it as the featured review since there are no other reviews written, but I see the author hasn't logged in for almost a full month.  Otherwise I'd ask him directly.  Once you space it out, can you let me know so I can assign it?  I'm trying to go through all the MAME games that don't have featured reviews.

Singelli : I saw this post and took care of the spacing. Let me know if there is something you want tweaked or whatnot.

Jordanv78 : Nah, that's perfect.  Thanks so much for being on top of your game and helpful, like always.  I'm about half way through the list, so I'll let you know if anything else needs doing.