Ms. Pac-Man

aka: Arcade Game Series: Ms. Pac-Man, Crazy Otto, Miss Pac-Man, Mrs. Pac-Man, Pac-Woman, Super Pac-Man
Moby ID: 576
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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
Hello
Hardware (Namco)
Programming (Namco)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 73% (based on 63 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 340 ratings with 7 reviews)

A nice improvement over the original.

The Good
The original Pac-Man was an arcade milestone. Reaching a level of popularity in its day that only Super Mario Brothers can rival. Toys, a cartoon and a cereal were all spun off this game and soon it got its sequel. Mrs. Pac-Man did what every good sequel should do and improve on the great game play of its predecessor.

The real strength of the original Pac-Man was the intuitive game play. Anyone can walk up to the game and know how to play. What makes this game better than the original was the design of the mazes. There are more mazes here and their design is improved over the first game.

The graphics are also improved over the regular Pac-Man. As silly an idea as it is, but the lipstick and bow make for a better game graphic to watch than the plain chomping disk of the original Pac-Man. The cut scenes (if you can really call them that) are cute. Divided up into stuff like "Act 1 They Meet" they also are an improvement over the original.

The Bad
The real weakness of this game is the repetition. Like all early 80s arcade games the levels repeat after a while only to have the enemies be faster the second time around. This makes the game only of interest for short periods of play. This not a game you will sit and play for hours like the folks did in 1983.

The Bottom Line
This game is a great short distraction which suits the portability of the Game Boy well. Since there is no real way to "beat" the game all you can do is try to top your high score. While this might not make the game interesting to play for a long gaming session, its perfect when you want to just play a quick game or two while waiting for the bus or for next class. Unless you happen to catch a 21st century strain of Pac-Man Fever.

Game Boy · by woods01 (129) · 2002

A good game for old PCs.

The Good
Ms. Pac-Man had good graphics, sound effects and gameplay. It used the same trick of PC-Man: one CGA palette ingame, two for congratulations at the end of each level.

The Bad
There was only a problem: controls. They were sometimes confusing, making the game harder than it really was. And, like Pac-Man, it wasn't converted to Colecovision.

The Bottom Line
Ms. Pac-Man was good, but Pac-Man and PC-Man was better. If you have an old PC and collect games, get it. But if you don't do, choose if you get it or no.

PC Booter · by Gustavo Henrique dos Santos (97) · 2014

Ms. Pac-Man Deluxe Edition

The Good
Do you know that there are two versions of Ms. Pac-Man? One was created by Namco, and this is the version that we saw in the arcades. The object is to guide Ms. Pac-Man around a maze of dots and gobble up each one, while on the lookout for four ghosts that make her progress difficult. If Ms. Pac-Man eats all the dots, then she goes on to the next maze. Another version was created by Williams Entertainment, which shares the same gameplay but adds extra features, and this is the version that this review is based on? So is this enhanced edition of Ms. Pac-Man any better? Well, yes and no.

Before you begin gameplay in the Williams' version, you have some options that can alter gameplay if selected. One of these options is the maze selection. You can either play the mazes that were found in the coin-op version, or play Mini, Big, or Strange. There are advantages in using each maze selection. For instance, in Mini, the mazes are not that long, allowing you to finish each maze in under two minutes. In Strange, mazes have a unusual layout, and will be unfamiliar to gamers who already know what the original mazes look like. So selecting different mazes provide some variation on the layout.

There are three difficulty settings to choose from: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Crazy. Just for fun, I played the game with the Crazy setting. On this setting, the ghosts run around the maze much faster than Pac-Man as soon as they are outside their hideout in the maze's center. Ms. Pac-Man can get that speed with the Pac Booster, which can be triggered by pressing a button, or by having it “always on”. With this, anyone can finish a maze in under one minute.

One more feature that is worth mentioning is that two players can play at the same time. One as Pac-Man and the other as Ms. Pac-Man. Each player is supposed to work against each other rather than join forces, to be the one with the more points.

Personally, I do not mind the extra features, as they provide a bit of variation on the game play. The graphics are more cartoony than Namco's versions, and the sound effects are enjoyable to listen to while you play. The intermissions have a lot more animation to them.

The Bad
While the extra features are a nice addition to Ms. Pac-Man, some elements may ruin the look and feel of the original. For instance, all the mazes are too big to fit on one screen, and you have to move Ms. Pac-Man off-screen to gobble all the dots. The score is not present at all times. It is only when Ms. Pac-Man moves to the top of the maze that it is displayed. There could have been an option of displaying the maze and score ass it was in the original, but no such option exists.

The Bottom Line
While both the Namco and Williams version of Ms. Pac-Man both share the same gameplay, Williams' version goes one step further by adding extra features by allowing you to select different maze types and difficulty settings. You also have the option of using the Pac Booster and letting two players play simultaneously. Although some features destroy the game's look and feel, you may like a bit of variation as you play. The game has nice graphics and sound effects, and the intermissions are more detailed and have got the extra animation that was not present in those of the original.

SNES · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2006

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Last number of UPC-A is missing? Edwin Drost (9288) Dec 30, 2019
Am I the only one seeing... Pseudo_Intellectual (66248) May 21, 2014
Ms. Pac-Man chased through New York by ghosts Pseudo_Intellectual (66248) Oct 31, 2007

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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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Trixter.

Xbox added by CalaisianMindthief. SNES added by Corn Popper. NES, Genesis, Commodore 64 added by PCGamer77. Windows added by Evolyzer. Atari 5200, Atari 7800 added by RKL. Xbox One, BlackBerry, PlayStation 4, iPod Classic added by Sciere. Palm OS, Android added by Kabushi. Game Gear added by Opipeuter. Atari 8-bit, VIC-20, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Atari 2600, TI-99/4A added by Servo. Xbox 360, iPhone 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 15, 1999. Last modified March 8, 2024.