Do you see what I did there? ROUND-up? Hurr durr!
But seriously, 35 years ago today the world was forever changed when a hungry little yellow ball was introduced to Japanese arcades. Namco’s Pac-Man left an indelible mark on the world of video gaming, and has transcended the medium to become a famous piece of pop culture. He’s as instantly recognizable as Mickey Mouse or Spider-Man, even for many people who have never played a video game in their lives. As one of the first character-driven video games, it was a groundbreaking achievement in the medium with complexities far beyond that of earlier arcade games. Its mass appeal to both men and women, children and adults, hardcore and casual players exploded into a phenomenon coined Pac-Man Fever. Over the years, his image has graced t-shirts, lunchboxes, coffee mugs, cereal boxes, underwear, several TV shows, and even cans of pasta. Google even made a playable version of their logo that proved so popular they have made it accessible ever since. He (and the rest of his family) have appeared on nearly every device capable of reproducing the gameplay – handheld personal electronics, cellphones, game consoles old and new, and personal computers of all makes and models.
Pac-Man is a cultural icon. Throughout countless games of varying quality, he has remained a beloved, relevant mascot. He has appeared in everything from the original maze-like games to kart racers, platformers, and most recently a foray into mascot-based fighting games. Here now is a look at some of the many games starring Namco’s biggest star and greatest creation.
Pac-Man (1980)
What more needs to be said about the original Pac-Man? I couldn’t even begin to calculate how many quarters were plunked into stand-up cabinets in arcades and cocktail machines in bars. For its time, Pac-Man was incredibly revolutionary. It drew players in with its colorful ghosts and main character, unique sound effects, and addictive gameplay that was simple to understand but almost impossible to master. Naturally, someone eventually did when Billy Mitchell played the first ever Perfect Pac-Man game, eating every dot, power pellet, fruit, and ghost until the game’s 256th level when it glitches out and becomes unplayable.
Pac-Man has been ported to just about every video game console known to man in some form or another. Versions of the original arcade game have appeared in compilations throughout the years, but I’d like to focus more on the versions that had to be reprogrammed.
The Atari 2600 version (pictured right) was a huge deal, and Atari knew it. They produced 12 million copies of the Pac-Man cartridge, expecting people to swarm to the stores to bring the arcade hit home. At first they were right, until word of mouth began to spread about the port’s dubious quality. Due to the limited memory of the 2600, the game was practically unrecognizable. The maze layout was completely changed, with the escape routes on the top and bottom of the screen instead of left and right. The graphics were plagued by terrible flicker, and the sounds were abrasive and unpleasant. Even Pac-Man himself was more angular, looking more like a hexagon than a circle. Despite this, I grew up playing this version on my family’s Atari 2600 and I still have fond memories of it, but I still made sure to put a few quarters in the Pac-Man cabinet every chance I got to the go to my local arcade.
The NES version, originally released as an unlicensed port by Tengen, was much closer to the arcade. The graphics and sounds were still off, but the maze was properly designed with the right proportions, putting the player’s score in the negative space to the side of the screen to account for the lack of the arcade monitor’s bezel. A more arcade accurate port appeared in Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo as an unlockable bonus.

Through the magic of emulation, the original arcade version is playable via MAME on a PC, or if you prefer legal versions, available on multiple Namco Museum packages across a multitude of platforms.
Ms. Pac-Man (1982)

After signing a deal with Namco to distribute Pac-Man in North America, Midway became impatient while waiting for the game’s creator to deliver a sequel to their arcade smash. A solution was discovered in the form of a Pac-Man hack called Crazy Otto. Programmed by several employees at General Computer Corporation, who had already produced a hack of Atari’s Missile Command and ended up helping them produce games for the 2600, Midway ended up altering the game’s sprites and releasing it as an unofficial sequel, Ms. Pac-Man.
Featuring four unique mazes, more complex AI, and bonuses that bounced around the maze, Ms. Pac-Man was a smash, eventually becoming one of the biggest selling arcade cabinets of all-time. Namco, however, were not pleased that their American distributor had created a game based on their property without their consent. This would ultimately lead to the two severing business relations in the wake of further unauthorized sequels, and Midway turning the rights to Ms. Pac-Man over to Namco.
Regardless of the behind the scenes ugliness, Ms. Pac-Man was as big as her beau, and saw an equal number of ports. Most players praised it as superior to the original Pac-Man, and it is still widely regarded as the best game in the franchise. This time around, Atari learned from their mistakes and produced a much more faithful port, with greatly enhanced graphics and mazes that closer resembled (though still differed) its arcade counterpart.

Not one, but two separate versions exist for the Nintendo Entertainment System, one being a direct arcade port from Namco themselves, and the other an unlicensed cartridge from Tengen, based on their enhanced 16-bit versions. This version, as well as the Genesis and SNES versions, featured not only the original arcade mazes, but 32 additional mazes as well, broken up into various categories including ones small enough to fit on a single screen without scrolling, extra large mazes, and crazy mazes with asymmetrical geometry, tight corners, dead ends, and even invisible walls. In addition, the port introduced the Pac-Booster, a feature found in some hacks of the original arcade cabinet, that could make Ms. Pac-Man move faster at the push of a button and even included simultaneous cooperative play with the second player controlling Pac-Man himself.
Super Pac-Man (1982) 
Namco’s official sequel to Pac-Man was released in the same year as Midway’s unofficial one, and it was overshadowed as a result. While Ms. Pac-Man featured multiple mazes, Super Pac-Man opted for another single layout that could change dynamically. Instead of eating dots, the player had to eat keys to open doors within the maze, allowing access to the fruit inside these corridors. Which doors the keys unlocked changed in successive levels, making it much harder for players to follow a single pattern.
The other game-changer was the introduction of the super pellet. While the original power pellets which allowed Pac-Man to turn the tables on his pursuers remained, the super pellet turned the hero into a giant version of himself, capable of breaking through the doors without requiring a key or harmlessly “flying over” (e.g. – passing through) the ghost sprites for a limited time. The stage bonus items also returned to being stationary, but this time were presented as a slot machine, with varying points for matched or mismatched items.
Though it’s still a great game (one of my favorites in the series, personally), Super Pac-Man was underwhelming to most players in the wake of Ms. Pac-Man, and never saw as many ports. A version was released for the original Gameboy Color as a bonus on the Ms. Pac-Man cart, but none of the popular home consoles saw a port until the Namco Museum compilations.
Pac & Pal (1983)
One of the rarest and least known Pac-Man games, Pac & Pal was a game I never knew existed until I discovered MAME and emulation. Apparently, there’s a good reason for that – it never left Japan, and saw no ports to home consoles.
At first glance, it doesn’t seem too different from the other Pac-Man games. There’s a maze, ghosts, keys, and fruit. The biggest changes in Pac & Pal are the addition of a computer-controlled friend for Pac-Man, and the card mechanic. Instead of eating dots, Pac-Man flips the cards, which act similar to keys in Super Pac-Man and open a corresponding gate leading to the item shown on the flip side. Once you collect the items, the stage is cleared. Your Pal assists you in grabbing the items so you can, hopefully, focus on dodging the ghosts, but the AI in the game is merciless, which makes it incredibly difficult.
This time around, there are no power pellets, but there are power-ups that allow Pac-Man to temporarily stun ghosts with a projectile. Stunning a ghost yields a point value, just as it did when eating them in previous games. The whole experience feels very strange, even if it looks familiar. It’s easy to see why this one never made it out of its native country, and it’s probably best left forgotten.
Jr. Pac-Man (1983)

Instead of Pac & Pal, Midway took it upon themselves to release a new sequel, this time starring the youngest member of the Pac-family. With the help of the General Computer Corporation employees who created Ms. Pac-Man (now working for Atari), they gave birth to Jr. Pac-Man.
Returning to the standard gobble ‘em up gameplay, Jr. Pac-Man further altered the formula by introducing large mazes which scrolled horizontally, meaning the ghosts would not always be on the screen. To account for the expanded playfield, several of the game’s seven mazes feature additional power pellets, but all of them lack the escape routes. Another major change was made to the bonus items. Not only did they bounce around the maze, like in Ms. Pac-Man, but any standard Pac dots they touched were made larger and increased their point value from 10 to 50, but with the caveat that Jr. would be considerably slowed down by them.
Jr. Pac-Man was met with relative apathy when compared to the phenomenon of his progenitors. It seemed like people were tiring of the maze game formula as newer, even more complex games like Nintendo’s Donkey Kong and Namco’s own Dig Dug were making a splash in arcades. As a result, few ports of Jr. Pac-Man were made, but one of them was the Atari 2600 version which swapped out the horizontal mazes for vertical scrolling ones, but left the other gameplay elements intact.
Unfortunately, the friction between Namco and Midway got worse as Midway continued to develop games without Namco’s blessing, including the hybrid pinball/arcade game Baby Pac-Man, which featured a miniature pinball table that could be triggered by entering the escape chutes on the top and bottom of the video screen above it. Namco eventually made their own Pac Jr. as a hidden bonus game in the Sega Genesis version of the ill-advised point and click adventure game Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures. This version is completely different from Midway's unofficial sequel, but has remained an obscure piece of Pac-Man history due to its limited market.
Pac-Land (1984)
With the popularity of the core games waning, and tensions between Namco and Midway over the latter’s unlicensed use of the former’s IP, Namco decided to take Pac-Man in a different direction. One year before Super Mario Bros. would change the face of video gaming forever, the industry’s biggest star appeared in a horizontally scrolling run and jump game.

Pac-Land’s bright and cartoonish graphics were a refreshing change from the previous games and their solid black backgrounds. While the maze element was gone, power pellets still allowed Pac-Man to tackle his nemeses, the ghosts, who were constantly trying to hinder Pac-Man’s joyful walk home.
That was pretty much the gist of it. Pac-Man walked from left to right, avoiding ghosts, jumping over fire hydrants, in order to get to his family, and it was a success. Pac-Land was one of the very few reasons I wanted a Turbo-Grafix 16, though an unlicensed Tengen port for the NES also existed with a major graphical downgrade.
Pac-Mania (1987)
Perhaps the most underrated Pac-Man game, Pac-Mania saw Namco attempt to go back to the series roots by returning to the maze-driven formula of earlier games, but this time with a pseudo-3D perspective. This new isometric look gave the appearance of fully three-dimensional characters and walls, as well as a sense of depth, but was met with mixed response from players who argued that the close-up camera and large mazes prevented them from seeing the ghosts at all times and strategizing accordingly. To account for this, Namco gave Pac-Man the ability to bounce (read: jump) over his enemies, giving him as escape in tight spots until jumping ghosts were also introduced in later levels.
Personally, Pac-Mania remains one of my favorite games in the series. No trip to the arcade was complete without at least a few plays, and I would frequently rent the Sega Genesis port years later. It’s also worth noting that the game features some stellar music tracks, several of which have become series staples in the years since its release.
Several other ports exist, including the Sega Master System and yet another unlicensed Tengen cart for the NES. It is also included as part of the Pac-Man Collection on the Gameboy Advance, though it should be noted the music is edited and looped differently.
Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX (2010)

In 2007, original Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani returned to create new mazes for the last time. Pac-Man: Champion Edition was released on Xbox Live Arcade to widespread critical acclaim for breathing new life into an old classic.
Championship Edition built on the simple formula of the original game, but with drastically faster gameplay and a multitude of mazes that changed on the fly, with no breaks in the gameplay. Taking advantage of modern widescreen displays, the maze is split into two separate halves with the ghost generator in the middle and escape routes all over the place depending on the maze. If the player clears the left side of the maze, a bonus item appears on the right that, when eaten, changes the cleared side in real-time, allowing the gameplay to continue.
Championship Edition was later upgraded further with the DX version that included new gameplay elements, such as massive combos. In addition to the usual chaser ghosts, there were sleepers in the mazes who would awaken and begin following Pac-Man after he passed by. Players could use this to create a huge trail of ghosts that could be decimated in seconds with a single power pellet. As the player's score increases, so does the speed of the gameplay until it becomes positively frenetic. Should the player really get in a bind, they could earn bombs to clear ghosts and escape death at the expense of points and slowing the game back down.
The glowing neon colors and pulse-pumping music only make the experience more intense, and players can unlock a variety of graphical options that, while purely aesthetic, pay tribute to the history of one of the most significant video game franchises in history.
Though it lacks the endless play option of the original and is limited to time attack based modes, Championship Edition DX is easily one of the best and most exciting arcade-style games in existence, and proves that Pac-Man can still hold his own in today's modern gaming landscape.
Lest you doubt that, just consider that he is also part of the roster in Nintendo's mascot-based brawler Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U alongside the likes of other icons such as Mario, Link, Mega Man, and Sonic the Hedgehog - right where he belongs.
