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Ms. Pac-Man

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Ms. Pac-Man
The first level of Ms. Pac-Man.
Developer(s)Midway / Namco
Publisher(s)Midway
Platform(s)Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari 8-bit family, Atari Lynx, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Gear, iPod, Mobile Phone, NES, Sega Mega Drive, Super NES, ZX Spectrum, Xbox Live Arcade
Release1982
Genre(s)Maze
Mode(s)Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Arcade systemNamco Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Midway as an unauthorized sequel to Pac-Man. It was released in North America in 1982 and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licenser Namco as an official title. This game introduces a female protagonist, new maze designs, and several minor gameplay changes over the original game.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Ms. Pac-Man is largely identical to that of the original Pac-Man. The player gathers points by eating dots and avoiding ghosts (contact with one loses a life). Power-pellets or energizers change the ghosts which reverse their course and can be eaten for bonus points (200, 400, 800, and 1600 points if all 4 are eaten before they change back to their normal colors). Fruit bonuses can be consumed for increasing point values, twice per level. As the levels increase, the speed and difficulty increase as well.

There are, however, some notable differences:

  • There are now six different mazes (four styles, with 5 colors), and "filled-in" walls (compared with the original Pac-Man's hollow walls). Each maze has two pairs of "warp tunnels" connecting the right and left sides of the maze (except for the third maze design which only has one set of tunnels). The maze is changed after each intermission.
  • The ghosts have pseudo-random movement, which precludes the use of pre-set movements (patterns) to beat each board.
  • Instead of appearing in the center of the maze, "fruits" enter the maze through one of the warp tunnels and bounce around the maze. They eventually leave through another tunnel if not eaten. The point values increase through the banana (5,000 pts), after which fruit appears in a somewhat random pattern.
  • The orange ghost's name changed from Clyde to Sue. (Sue would later become a purple female ghost in Pac-Land, appearing alongside Clyde.)
  • The three intermissions have changed to follow the developing relationship between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man (from when they first meet to having a stork drop off their baby.)

Like Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man has a bug in the fruit-drawing routine, which renders the 256th board unplayable. While it may be possible to reach the 256th board using the "rack test" cheat available as a DIP switch (usable through MAME or other arcade emulator), the actual arcade hardware will crash at or around the 134th board. At this point in the game, a bug in the code causes invalid data tables to be used for a subroutine which is supposed to draw invisible characters which slow down the ghosts in the tunnels[1]. On level 142, a similar bug causes a corrupt value to be loaded into the pointer to the maze data, causing the screen to turn black. Although the ghosts and Ms. Pac-Man are still visible, the game becomes unplayable.

History

Ms. Pac-Man was originally conceived as a bootlegged hack of Pac-Man called Crazy Otto[2], created by programmers employed at the General Computer Corporation (GCC).

After the game became wildly popular, Midway and GCC undertook a brief legal battle concerning royalties, but because the game was accomplished without Namco's consent, both companies eventually turned over the rights of Ms. Pac-Man to the parent company, fearing a lawsuit. Nonetheless, Ms. Pac-Man was the first of a series of unauthorized sequels that eventually led to the termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway.[3]

Ms. Pac-Man was later released on the third Namco Museum game, however there is no mention of it in Namco's official archives (including the archives on all of the Namco Museum releases).

In 2001, Namco released an arcade board featuring both Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga in honor of the 20th anniversary of both games. It also features Pac-Man as a hidden bonus game. The later 25th Anniversary Edition allows all three games to be selected at the main menu.

Home versions and re-releases

Like many other games of its era, Ms. Pac-Man has been ported to many home computer and gaming systems. It has also been included in Namco's, Microsoft's and Atari's late 1990s series of classic game anthologies, and is an unlockable minigame in Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures and Pac-Man World 2.

The Mega Drive/Genesis and NES versions, by Tengen, and the Super NES version, by Williams Electronics, took a few liberties. They featured 4 different sets of mazes: the original arcade mazes, bigger mazes, smaller mazes, and "strange" mazes. There was also a "Pac-Booster" option which lets players make Ms. Pac-Man go much faster. All of these versions also allow two people to play simultaneously, with player 2 as Pac-Man, either cooperatively or competitively. A special version of the game was also released for the Atari Lynx, introducing new mazes and a power-up that gave the player a temporary speed boost.

A tabletop version of Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1981 by Coleco. The unit was shaped like a miniature arcade cabinet, was controlled with a built-in joystick, and used a multicolor vacuum fluorescent display. [4]

A standalone, battery-powered version of the game released by Jakks Pacific can be plugged directly into a television. Ms. Pac-Man and four other games (Galaga, Mappy, Xevious and Pole Position) are included in a self-contained joystick hand controller[5]. Ms. Pac Man was also a free game bundled with every Xbox Live Arcade disc for the original Xbox. The Xbox 360 XBLA version was released on January 9, 2007.

A version of Ms. Pac-Man was created for the Puffer exercise bike controller by Jim Leiterman for the Atari 5200 as part of the Puffer project. It was never intended to be published.[6]

In film and television

  • A Ms. Pac-Man machine is the basis of a storyline in the Friends episode The One Where Joey Dates Rachel. The plot line revolves around Chandler entering crude words onto the game's high-score screen and then have Phoebe attempt to beat his scores (thus removing them) before Ross's seven year old son arrives.
  • A Ms. Pac-Man machine is the focus of several scenes in episode "My Own Private Practice Guy" of the TV show Scrubs. The Todd comments "Oh Ms. Pac-man I would sex that bow right off your head. Eat those dots you naughty, naughty girl." Dr. Kelso is also an expert at the game, with an impossibly high score of 40,000,000 (the maximum score possible is 3,333,360).
  • In an episode of the animated series Futurama, "Anthology of Interest II", in Fry's video game inspired segment Ms. Pac-Man appears after her husband, General Colin Pac-Man, is killed by a laser bolt from a Space Invader. Fry then asks Amy to tend to "the Widow Pac-Man".
  • In The Go! Team's music video Junior Kickstart, Ms. Pac-Man is depicted running around New York City while being chased by Blinky, Inky and Pinky.
  • In an episode of The Simpsons, Marge reminisces to a time in the early '80s when Ms. Pac-Man "struck a blow for women's rights."[7]
  • In the movie Wayne's World, Wayne asks the owner of 'Noah's Arcade' "I've always wanted to know what is the difference between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, really?", to which he replies "Well, she has a bow on her head". Wayne responds with: "That's it? Get right out of town!".
  • In an episode of the animated TV show Drawn Together Xander, a video game character, hosts a party for his video game friends. Pac Man is there, and during the course of the party it is revealed he is also Ms. Pac Man, as he is a transvestite.

In music

  • The Go! Team released a song called Ms Pacman.


References

  1. ^ http://donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get3.htm
  2. ^ http://www.calarts.edu/~nstrum/macmame/reviews/joyrev/joypgs/otto.html
  3. ^ http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8782
  4. ^ http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Coleco/MsPacMan.htm
  5. ^ http://www.jakkstvgames.com/mspacman.html
  6. ^ Reichert, Matt, 5200 Rumor Mill: Puffer Ms. Pac-Man, retrieved 2007-10-24
  7. ^ "Lisa's First Word" Episode 69 Season 4 Production code 9F08
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