Talk:Baby Pac-Man

Non-Namco Pac-Man

It's important to point out that Baby Pac-Man was developed in-house at Bally-Midway, likely without consent from Namco. The game doesn't look, sound, or feel anything like an official Namco Pac-Man title!

The monster movement in particular is frustratingly random... unlike the real Pac-Man games, the monsters reverse direction almost constantly, making it impossible to slip past them if they're in an adjacent corridor. Pac-Man was all about anticipating the movement of the monsters and acting accordingly, but Baby Pac-Man makes this impossible. --M.Neko 10:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Distribution

Has anyone else actually played one of these machines? The only place that I ever saw one was in the late 80's on the England side of the Dover - Callais hovercraft crossing (no chunnel then). I can't imagine that there were many of them. --Falcomadol 00:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

There weren't many of them, and the few that did exist were hard to keep in working order. There actually was a Baby Pac-Man machine in a mini golf center just outside of Lansing MI, but it was removed in the early 1990's, probably due to a combination of its age and the aforementioned maintenence difficulties. --M.Neko 10:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I can remember playing one of these machines when a little kid around 1987 or so, in a restaurant near Cortland, New York. Sadly the machine has been gone for almost 15 years (and the restaurant closed a few years ago). Many fond memories of having breakfast with my dad and playing a few rounds. --PhoenixFlare 19:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The Major Magic's (similar to Chuck E. Cheese if you don't know -- pizza place with an arcade) I frequented as a kid in the Metro Detroit Area had several Baby Pac-Man machines. Hardly anyone ever seemed to play them. 76.226.105.131 (talk) 06:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I played this game in Brighton (somewhere around Palace Pier) (UK) and downtown Frankfurt (Germany), it was really frustrating. Still... I find it very strange, I'm quite sure that the pinball part was based on two levels, you could use the ball (or controls? I don't remember exactly it's just a long time since...) to control Pacman's movements and the ball would stop for that period of time. Changes between screen- and ballplay were very sudden. The optical appearance was great, but it was definitely too hard to be fun.... And I used to be an advanced pinball player in these years... --Nemissimo (talk) 22:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Not only have I played this machine but I also own one! And you are right, they are very difficult to maintain, currently there is sound on my machine but no picture, the pinball still works fine but you have no idea where you are on the maze in the video portion. Any questions, dont hesitate to post. Ron, 8/13/08

This machine was common throughout the Las Vegas, NV, area. I've played it about ten times. I can list the places from memory, and remember, these machines were removed during the 1990s, except one: Scandia (machine was there until place closed, didn't work after 1995), a Korean arcade, two different pizza parlors on the east side of the valley, Union Plaza arcade, GameWorks (machine removed for not working at all within a few days), Palace Station arcade, Mini Grand Prix, Pistol Pete's (various locations), Arizona Charlie's arcade. I'm sure there were more, but I was on a bike as a kid/teen! Coffee5binky (talk) 04:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Legal framework

How could they distribute this system without a proper license? Where there any legal consequences??--Nemissimo (talk) 22:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. This was one of several games that Midway created without Namco's consent. It lead to Namco severing ties with Midway, such that Midway no longer had the rights to distribute any new Namco games. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Namco didn't get any American copyrights until around 1990, when they started making TG-16, Genesis and Game Gear games, and releasing their games without Atari Games' help. Most Namco games before 1990s were released by Tengen (owned jointly by Atari Games and Namco, from legal paperwork I've read back in the 1990s during college). Midway had the exclusive on Pac-Man in the arcade, and Atari, Inc., (not Atari Games) had the exclusive on home consoles and computers, with Namco feeling free to do whatever they wanted with their terms and games. Coffee5binky (talk) 04:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)