Pac-Man

Name: Pac-Man
Year: 1993
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Namco
Genre: Arcade
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: N/A

(Note: This game was released twice for the Nintendo Entertainment System; unofficially by Tengen in 1988, then officially by Namco in 1993. This review looks at the Namco version only)

Okay, let me start out by making a couple of things perfectly clear: I love Pac-Man.  Pac-Man is a genre defining game that's as much fun to play now as when it came out, and when it first hit arcades in 1975, there was nothing else quite like it.

But we're not looking at look at the legacy of the 1975 arcade game.  We're here to decide if Pac-Man is a worthwhile $50 purchase for the NES.  And I am here to tell you it is not.  Paying full price for a one-screen arcade game (with only one level, that repeats) was perfectly acceptable on the Atari 2600, but the NES was suppose to be the next generation of gaming.  Even at the arcades at this point, Pac-Man had been replaced by games like Ghosts & Goblins, Gauntlet, and 1942, all of which had made perfectly respectable transitions to the NES.  Even in 1993, charging full price for this without including a second game on the cartridge (like Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, or Galaga, all of which are also available on the NES),was a pretty lousy move.

Graphics & Animation: 2 (Average)
The good news is that it looks exactly like the arcade game.... The bad news is that it looks exactly like the arcade game.

Music & Sound: 2 (Average)
See "graphics", above.

Controls & Level Design: 1 (Bad)
Maybe it's because I'm using a D-pad instead of the preferred arcade stick, but I can't help but feel the controls are the one bad thing about this port.  The trick in Pac-Man is to hold the button down before you want to turn, but I keep missing the turns in this version.

Story & Presentation: 2 (Average)
Pac-Man was the first ever video game to feature cut-scenes.  Sure, they're nothing special, but at least this game has cut-scenes - more then I can say for most NES games.

Length & Replayability: 0 (Awful)
It's a single one-screen level, over and over and over again.  Also, and I know this is a limitation of the technology, but the worst thing about arcade games on the NES is they don't save your score.  High scores are the only point of games like this, so not being  to record it is the arcade equivalent of not being able to save your game.

Total: 7 (Bad)