Ms. Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man
The North American Ms. Pac-Man cabinet
Developer(s)	Bally/Midway / General Computer Corporation
Publisher(s)	Bally/Midway / Namco
Engine	Pac-Man
Platform(s)	Arcade
Release date(s)	1981
Genre(s)	Maze
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet	Upright, cabaret and cocktail
Arcade system	Namco Pac-Man
Display	19 inch Raster, Vertical orientation, 224 × 288

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 1981 and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licensor Namco as an official title. This game introduces a female protagonist, new maze designs and several minor gameplay changes over the original game.

Gameplay

Screenshot of play area.

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. 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:

• The game has four different mazes that appear in different sets of colors.
• Most of the new mazes have two sets of warp tunnels.
• Unlike the original Pac-Man, the spaces in between the walls are filled in, making it easier to see where the path is.
• The ghosts' behavior patterns are different and include semi-random movement, precluding the use of patterns to beat each level.
• Instead of appearing in the center of the maze, fruits bounce around the maze, entering and leaving through the warp tunnels. Once all fruits have been encountered, they appear in random sequence for the rest of the game.
• The orange ghost's name is Sue instead of 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).
• The sound effects and music of the game are very different from the Pac-Man sounds.

As in Pac-Man, the game has a bug in the subroutine that draws the fruit, which renders the 256th level unplayable. However, the game also has other bugs that cause it to crash or become unplayable much sooner, making it impossible to reach the 256th level without an emulator.^[1]

History

Ms. Pac-Man was originally conceived as an enhancement kit for Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, created by programmers employed at the General Computer Corporation (GCC).^[2]

While Crazy Otto was under development, GCC settled a lawsuit with Atari over their Missile Command conversion kit Super Missile Attack. Part of the settlement terms barred GCC from selling future conversion kits without consent from the original game manufacturer. Rather than scrapping Crazy Otto entirely, the programmers decided to show it to Midway, Namco's American distributor of the original game. Midway had become impatient in waiting for Namco to release its next Pac-Man game (which would be Super Pac-Man), and were enthusiastic that such a game had come to their attention. They bought the rights to Crazy Otto, changed the sprites to fit the Pac-Man universe, renamed the game Ms. Pac-Man, and released it into arcades.^[3]

After the game became wildly popular, Midway and GCC undertook a brief legal battle concerning royalties. The Killer List of Videogames notes that the game was accomplished without Namco's consent, causing both companies to eventually turn over the rights of Ms. Pac-Man to Namco. Ms. Pac-Man was reportedly the first of a series of unauthorized sequels that eventually led to the termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway.^[2] GCC co-founder Doug Macrae has disputed stories that the game was manufactured without Namco's blessing, claiming that then-Namco president Masaya Nakamura had even provided feedback over character artwork during the game's development.^[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 with the subtitle "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981". 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.^{[citation needed]}

Ports

Like many other games of its era, Ms. Pac-Man has been ported to many platforms.

• 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]
• Atari Inc released versions of it for its Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, and Atari 8-bit computer line. There were also versions for the Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, IBM PC, Apple II, and Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. A version of Ms. Pac-Man was also 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.^[5] Atari Corporation also released a version for the Atari Lynx, introducing new mazes and a power-up that gave the player a temporary speed boost.
• The Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, and NES versions, by Tengen, and the Super NES version, by Williams Electronics, took a few liberties. They featured four different sets of mazes: the original arcade mazes, bigger mazes, smaller mazes, and "strange" mazes. There was also a Pac-Booster option that let players make Ms. Pac-Man move much faster. All of these versions also allowed two people to play simultaneously, with player 2 as Pac-Man, either cooperatively or competitively. The game also ended at level 32, at which point an intermission that did not occur in the original game took place, where Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man say good bye. Namco also ported Ms. Pac-Man to the Famicom in 1985; this version did not reach North America until 1993. Unlike the Tengen version, it was a straight port of the arcade game without any added features.
• Ms. Pac-Man was ported to the CD-i as part of an Arcade Classics collection (released in Europe, but not in North America). It had all of the extra features of Tengen's ports even though neither Tengen or Williams Electronics had made this version.
• 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.
• It was ported to the Game Boy Color with two new mazes and a bonus game (Super Pac-Man).
• 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.^[6]
• 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, featuring an online leaderboard and twelve achievements.^[7]
• As of July 11, 2008, Ms. Pac Man is available for Apple's iPhone through the App Store, and features all 256 levels.^[8] The game was also released in July for Windows Mobile Professional.
• As part of Pac-Man's 30th anniversary, Ms. Pac-Man is one of the games included on the home version of Pac-Man's Arcade Party arcade machine.

Ms. Pac-Man in popular culture

In film and television

The titular character of Ms. Pac-Man is a central figure in the Pac-Man animated TV series, where she is named Pepper and is Pac-Man's wife.^[9]

Arcade cabinets have made appearances in a number of other series: in the 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.^[10] Similarly, in the Weeds episode, "A Modest Proposal", the character Andy Botwin buys a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet. He anthropomorphises the ghosts, and also uses sexual language, though with Sue as the target, saying, "Come here Sue, you filthy little ghost whore!".^[11]

Ms. Pac-Man is referenced by a number of Fox programmes. In The Simpsons episode "I Married Marge," Mr. Burns can be seen playing Ms. Pac-Man while he says "That's it... That's it... Come closer... [gobbles a power pellet] Muhahaha! Ironic isn't it. The hunter has become the hunted! Hahahaha!!".^[12] In Family Guy, during the episode "Meet the Quagmires," Peter is shown playing Menstrual Ms. Pac-Man when he and Brian go back in time to the 80s.^[13] Futurama's episode "Anthology of Interest II" has a video game-inspired segment, in which the character of Ms. Pac-Man appears after her husband, "General Colin Pac-Man", is killed by a laser bolt from a Space Invader. She appears to sob over Colin's dead body. Fry then asks Amy to "tend to the Widow Pac-Man".^[14]

Comedian and talk show host Tom Green owns a Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine which can occasionally be seen during episodes of Tom Green's House Tonight, and was featured in an episode of The Jace Hall Show.^[15]

In the 1992 movie Wayne's World Wayne Campbell (played by Mike Myers) asks what is the difference between Pac-Man & Ms. Pac-Man is "really". Noah Vanderhof says she had a bow in her hair making Wayne telling him to "get out of town".^{[citation needed]}

In the Drawn Together episode "Gay Bash", Xandir meets Pac-Man (with whom he is friends) at a gay party. Believing Ms. Pac-Man to be his ex-wife, Xandir tells him to keep his gay secret between them (as Ms. Pac-Man is best friends with Xandir's girlfriend). However, it is revealed that Ms. Pac-Man is actually Pac-Man in drag.^{[citation needed]}

Reception and legacy

In 2009, Game Informer put Ms. Pac-Man 10th on their list of "The Top 200 Games of All Time", saying that it "trumped [the original Pac-Man] in nearly every way".^[16]

References

1. ^ Donhodges.Com—Ms. Pac-Man's Kill Screens Analyzed And Fixed
2. ^ ^{a b} Ms. Pac-Man Videogame by Midway (1981) - The International Arcade Museum and the KLOV
3. ^ ^{a b} Doug Macrae from GCC speaks at California Extreme 2010
4. ^ Coleco Ms Pac Man
5. ^ Reichert, Matt. "5200 Rumor Mill: Puffer Ms. Pac-Man". http://www.atariprotos.com/rumormill/5200/5200rumor.htm#M. Retrieved 2007-10-24. 
6. ^ Welcome to JAKKS TV Games >> Ms. Pac-Man
7. ^ Ms. Pac-Man Game Detail Page, xbox.com
8. ^ Ms. PAC-MAN now available for your iPod
9. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083461/
10. ^ "My Own Private Practice Guy". Director: Marc Buckland, Writers: Angela Nissel, Mark Stegemann. Scrubs. NBC. 2003-03-13. No. 41. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.
11. ^ "A Modest Proposal". Director: Michael Trim, Writer: Vanessa Reisen. Weeds. Showtime. 2009-07-13. No. 6, season 5. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.
12. ^ "I Married Marge". Director: Jeffrey Lynch, Writer: Jeff Martin. The Simpsons. Fox. 1991-12-26. No. 47. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.
13. ^ "Meet the Quagmires". Directors: Dan Povenmire, Chris Robertson, Writer: Mark Hentemann. Family Guy. Fox. 2007-05-20. No. 98. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.
14. ^ "Anthology of Interest II". Director: Bret Haaland, Writers: Lewis Morton, David X. Cohen, Jason Gorbett, Scott Kirby. Futurama. Fox. 2002-01-06. No. 50. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.
15. ^ Hall, Jace (2009-03-19). "Tom Green & Everquest Anniversary". Crackle. http://crackle.com/c/Jace_Hall/Tom_Green_Everquest_Anniversary/2453897. Retrieved 2010-04-04. 
16. ^ "The Top 200 Games of All Time". Game Informer (200): 44–79. December 2009. ISSN 1067-6392. OCLC 27315596. 

External links

• GCC 2004 reunion audio Presentation by GCC alumni of their company history, including development of Ms. Pac-Man
• Ms. PAC-MAN for iPod at NamcoGames.com
• Ms. Pac-Man guide at StrategyWiki
• Ms. Pac-Man (360) Reviews at Metacritic
• ClassicGaming.com entry on Ms. Pac-Man
• Ms. Pac-Man at MobyGames
• Ms. Pac-Man at the Internet Movie Database
• Twin Galaxies has a scoreboard for Ms. Pac-Man high scores (registration required)