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Ms. Pac-Man

aka: Arcade Game Series: Ms. Pac-Man, Crazy Otto, Miss Pac-Man, Mrs. Pac-Man, Pac-Woman, Super Pac-Man
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Released
February 3rd, 1982 on Arcade
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Moby Score
7.0
#11,496 of 158K
Critics
73% (64)
Players
(334)
Ranking
Collected By
183 players
Genre
Action
Perspective
Top-down
Visual
Fixed / flip-screen
Gameplay
Arcade
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Description official descriptions

In 1981, a sequel to Pac-Man was introduced in the form of his girlfriend, Ms. Pac-Man. This sequel continued on the "eat the dots/avoid the ghosts" gameplay of the original game, but added new features to keep the title fresh.

Like her boyfriend, Ms. Pac-Man attempts to clear four various and challenging mazes filled with dots and ever-moving bouncing fruit while avoiding Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Sue, each with their own personalities and tactics. One touch from any of these ghosts means a loss of life for Ms. Pac-Man.

Ms. Pac-Man can turn the tables on her pursuers by eating one of the four Energizers located within the maze. During this time, the ghosts turn blue, and Ms. Pac-Man can eat them for bonus points (ranging from 200, 400, 800, and 1600, progressively). The Energizer power only lasts for a limited amount of time, as the ghost's eyes float back to their center box, and regenerate to chase after Ms. Pac-Man again.

Survive a few rounds of gameplay, and the player will be treated to humorous intermissions showing the growing romantic relationship between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, leading all the way up to the arrival of "Junior".

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Credits (Arcade version)

10 People (9 developers, 1 thanks)

Developers
Music
Intermissions
Hardware Designer
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Hardware (Namco)
Programming (Namco)

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Discussion

Subject User Date
Last number of UPC-A is missing? Edwin Drost (5624) 2019-12-30 17:23:47
Am I the only one seeing... Pseudo_Intellectual (64949) 2014-05-21 00:25:45
Ms. Pac-Man chased through New York by ghosts Pseudo_Intellectual (64949) 2007-10-31 16:13:23

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Arcade version of Ms. Pac-Man appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Board game adaption

In 1982 Milton-Bradley released a board game adaptation of this video game.

Ghosts

While three of the ghosts returned from the original Pac-Man game, the orange ghost (Pokey/Clyde) was made female, and given the nickname "Sue". Sue was later depicted as a purple ghost, first in the animated series, then in later versions of the game. Sue is also named after the sister of original General Computer hacker Doug Macrae.

Launch game

Ms. Pac-Man was one of the "Fabulous Eleven" launch games for the Atari 7800.

Title

Once her initial leggy incarnation as Crazy Otto had been shelved, Ms. Pac-Man went through a baffling array of name changes: Pac-Woman was eventually vetoed by female employees of Midway, and revised to Miss Pac-Man -- until someone noticed that animated inter-scene depictions of the male and female Pac-Men getting together and producing a child now illustrated a bastard birth out of wedlock. From there, it shuffled to Mrs. Pac-Man and, at the last minute (within 72 hours of the production line startup of the original coin-ops) finalized as Ms. Pac-Man.

TV series reference

The game is referenced in season 5, episode 18 (Meet the Quagmires) of the animated TV series Family Guy. Peter Griffin, one of the main characters, is shown playing the arcade game of Ms. Pac-Man in 1984. The following conversation ensues:

Woman: Wow, you're really good at this game!
Peter Griffin: Yeah, I've logged a lot of game hours on Menstrual Ms. Pac-Man.
[in the game, we see Ms. Pac-Man eating her way across the screen, with 4 ghosts following her. Suddenly she turns toward them]
Ms. Pac-Man: WHAT?! WHAT?! [the ghosts quickly run away]
Blinky: Geeze.
Clyde: Nothing.
Pinky: Bitch.

Unauthorized release

The arcade game Ms. Pac-Man was not created or authorized by Namco, who holds the original license. The idea behind this game was to make an upgrade for Pac-Man called "Crazy Otto", developed by General Computer Corporation (GCC). GCC approached Midway Manufacturing about buying the upgrade, which Midway did. Midway (Namco's American distributor) then altered Crazy Otto to make Ms. Pac-Man.

Midway (a division of Bally, at the time) released Ms. Pac-Man (unauthorized), but after a year they passed the rights of the game and character to Namco so that Namco would not sue them or withdraw their licensing agreement.

Unfortunately, Midway did not learn its lesson and created a number of other unlicensed versions of Pac-Man (like Pac-Man Plus, Baby Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man), which caused Namco to finally withdraw their agreement.

Awards

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #89 (Best 100 Games of All Time) (Genesis / SNES versions)
  • Game Informer Magazine
    • August 2001 (Issue 100) - voted #9 in a Top 100 Games of All Time poll
  • Retro Gamer Magazine
    • (Issue 46) - voted #15 in a “Top 25 Atari 2600” Games poll
  • The Strong National Museum of Play
    • 2022 – Introduced into the World Video Game Hall of Fame

Information also contributed Guy Chapman, Klaster_1, LepricahnsGold, Pseudo_Intellectual, and Sciere

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 576

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Trixter.

Xbox added by CalaisianMindthief. SNES added by Corn Popper. Genesis, NES, Commodore 64 added by PCGamer77. Windows added by Evolyzer. Atari 7800, Atari 5200 added by RKL. iPod Classic, PlayStation 4, BlackBerry, Xbox One added by Sciere. Android, Palm OS added by Kabushi. Game Gear added by Opipeuter. TI-99/4A, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Atari 2600, VIC-20, Atari 8-bit added by Servo. iPhone, Xbox 360 added by Ben K. SEGA Master System added by Katakis | カタキス. Game Boy added by quizzley7. Lynx added by Jeanne. Arcade added by rcoltrane.

Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Alaka, Pseudo_Intellectual, Starbuck the Third, FatherJack, ZeTomes, Bart Smith, Evolyzer, Abhishek Kumar, SoMuchChaotix.

Game added December 15th, 1999. Last modified May 30th, 2023.