Videogame Review, Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 Console (w/ 7800 Joystick)

Videogame Review, Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 Console (w/ 7800 Joystick)

It’s an original game with some weird flavor.  Certainly the drawings of Pac-Man and the ghosts look marvelous because they resemble another pack from a different, applicable universe for Pac-Man with exception of its far cry from the arcade machine from the 80s.  Nothing in this game is more of the same old, same old.  The game select switch gives the hooligans crawling, walking, jogging, and running capabilities.  Also, the difficulty switch puts temper in the program.  Each ghost has white googly eyes that present their semi-transparent bodies for the loony world they’re in and appear humorous to those who have fun dumbing down the importance of computers.  An Atari 2600 game of this nature is like a program from an early-90s IBM program; I remember playing with an IBM computer in Poinsettia Elementary School and having fun with the wildly impersonal “crunch the numbers” game.  Pac-Man in the arcade was more exquisite to entertainment whereas Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was more technical in computer appreciation.  Atari actually recommended playing both versions in the manual included with the 2600 game; the program was never intended to “replace” the arcade.  What this Pac-Man parody (not Pac-Man port) does instead is further define Pac-Man’s universe.  This is interesting from a historical perspective.  Couldn’t this 2600 game have been so bad that it was actually really good?  We can’t discredit its originality.  It’s like living in a new dream again where all common sense gets revamped towards privilege of the insane undertaking across the universe into a ghost’s home.  Plus, it looks and sounds really good off of my horrible Westing house TV, the 7800 joystick is sharp and readily available for quick action.  Maybe Atari should’ve been more up front with this Pac-Man parody.  They should’ve said, “Look, we kind of know what the arcade looks like and we’re just trying to give you SOMETHING to play with on the Atari 2600.”  Dumb fashion in the 80s told people back then that any game that wasn’t like the arcade was lesser than the arcade.  But look into the ghosts’ eyes!  Can’t you see love in their gaze?  Please, I’m trying to have something useful to say about “bad” art.  There’s bad art and then there’s “bad” art.  So why is this Pac-Man so mechanical and dull-looking?  Using a computer, even if it’s Atari’s video computer, can bring us to less-than-amusing levels since we’ve been trying to be active outside for work and business before returning home for relaxation.  The arcade feels more like it’s work.  We’ve visited arcades with work on the side of things whereas Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 might be founded in an attic somewhere until further notice from eBay.  Because of all this information we can see why Atari fans took Pac-Man for the 2600 as a bad joke.  This Pac-Man was a parody that not only needed work to make it resemble the arcade more according to the public’s discrimination between arcade games and home games, but Atari players needed to work at home for Pac-Man to be more of a joy rather than less of an effort.  You’ve probably been laughing so hard while reading my review and I’ll end my review with a pointer on sarcasm.

   

https://youtu.be/juH2qHYX9aI