In 1980 Namco released Pac Man and created a new genre of video games: The Maze. While there have been legal battles and numerous debates over other games, I reject the use of the word 'clone' to describe this variation. Clone implies a carbon-copy with little difference. Just because you navigate a maze and collect items might make the game derivative, but not a clone. 

  In Lady Bug the object is to collect all of the flowers in a maze while avoiding deadly garden pests. Sound familiar? In Lady Bug, each maze has 20 gates which switch position as you pass through them. You can use these to your advantage by shutting off the path of an enemy on your tail. Around the edges of the maze is a timer that counts down to the release of another enemy. Also along the way are hearts(point multipliers), deadly skulls that also kill enemies, and the various letters you must collect to earn extra lives or a special(free game). When they are blue, the heart multipliers are active, when yellow, the EXTRA is active, and when red, the SPECIAL is active. No surprise Universal Games also did pinball. After all four enemies are released a bonus vegetable will appear in the area where they spawn. Eat it to stop the bad bugs in their tracks for a few seconds. The speed increases with each level of play.

GRAPHICS are ok. It's 1981 remember, so these stand up quite well.The colors are pleasant and characters have some detail. I give an 8.

SOUND is something that the programmers of Lady Bug didn't seem too concerned with. Once again, it's 1981 so no soundtrack isn't really an issue. But even taking that into account, I have to believe it could be better. A ten-note intro theme and a whistle when you die to go with a droning background rhythm leave plenty to be desired. I can't give more than a 5 here.

ADDICTIVENESS seems to be a matter of opinion on this game. At first, it does seem like kind of a mess, but after you get the control down and start to watch the enemies movements it gets rewarding to complete the stages and protect poor Miss Lady Bug. I give it an 8.

STORY is not provided for Lady Bug. Eat the flowers? I always thought lady bugs were kind of garden apex predators but I'm probably wrong. No story. Blank.

DEPTH for a game like this is an issue. Even though you get to move the maze around via the gates and the extra challenge of collecting letters there's not much else going on really. The types of enemies change for the first 5 or 6 mazes and there are different bonus veggies going past that. Still deeper than Pac Man though. Go for a 6.

DIFFICULTY is one thing that turns some off to this game I'm sure. It did to me. I remember first playing it at Chuck E. Cheeses way back in the 80s. I might have spent 2 quarters on it before moving on to something else. Fast forward 30 years and I have free game play on vizzed and I learned what I had been missing. It's hard at first. But with practice it comes. I rate it a 7. 

OVERALL if you're looking for an alternative to Pac Man and willing to die a lot at first, Lady Bug is a good bet. Give a Lady a chance. Thanks for reading.

janus : Actually I think the various pests are beautiful. I'm easy to please though. I don't remember what Coleco sounds like but I guess we have to disagree if they're the same. It's not intolerable. But it could be somewhat more pleasing I think. Thanks for the input so much though.