Ms. Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man
The North American Ms. Pac-Man cabinet
Developer(s)	Midway / General Computer Corporation
Publisher(s)	Midway / Namco
Engine	Pac-Man
Platform(s)	Arcade
Release date(s)	1981
Genre(s)	Maze
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Input methods	4-way Joystick
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 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 first level of Ms. Pac-Man.

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 tell where the path is.

• The ghosts' behavior patterns are different and include semi-random movement, precluding the use of pre-set 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 rather than the last fruit repeating.

• 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).

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

The programmers, surprised at the quality of the game they had created, showed 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 Namco, 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.^[2] 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.^{[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. ^[3]
• 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, 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.^[4] 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.
• 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.
• 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, featuring an online leaderboard and twelve achievements.^[6]
• As of July 11, 2008, Ms. Pac Man is available for Apple's iPhone through the App Store, and features all 256 levels.^[7]

Ms. Pac-Man in popular culture

In film and television

• Ms. Pac-Man is a central character in the Pac-Man animated TV series, where she is named Pepper and is Pac-Man's wife.^[8]

• In the Friends episode "The One Where Joey Dates Rachel", Chandler & Monica receive a Ms. Pac-Man machine as a wedding present and Chandler becomes addicted to playing it.

• 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.^[9]

• In The Simpsons episode "Lisa's First Word," Marge begins telling the story of how Lisa learned to talk by describing the spring of 1983 as a time when "Ms. Pac-man struck a blow for women's rights."

• 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".^[10]

• In the Drawn Together episode "Gay Bash", Xandir meets Pac-Man (with whom he is friends with) 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.

• In an episode of the animated series Family Guy titled "Meet the Quagmires," Peter Griffin is shown playing Menstrual Ms. Pac-Man when he goes back in time to the 80s.^[11]

• In the film Wayne's World, based on the popular SNL sketch Wayne's World, Wayne (Mike Myers) asks the owner of a large arcade chain, Noah Vanderhoff, what the difference between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man is, "really", to which Noah replies "Well, she has a bow on her head.", prompting Wayne to hold up a card saying "This man has no penis".

• In the hit TV show Weeds - Season 5 Episode 6, Andy Botwin goes crazy after his sister in law Nancy Botwin leaves him a goodbye note and walks out of his life. He then goes and buys himself a personal arcade with his conned money, to get over his depression . He is seen playing Ms. Pac-Man for most of the episode, both dazed and confused. When being asked a question he replies, "It feels right you know. She gets me. We're in sync. No words, just a gentle touch of my hand. I move left, she moves left. I move right, she moves right. Yes! Power pellet! Die Blinky Die! Come here Sue, you filthy little ghost whore".

• In the 2005 film Are We There Yet?, Lindsay (Aleisha Allen) reveals to Nick (Ice Cube) that Kevin (Philip Daniel Bolden) played Ms. Pac-Man at the mall and had nightmares for a week.

In music

• Lil Flip's song, Game Over, heavily samples from the game. (eating the fruit, Ms. Pac-Man dying, noise when power pellet is eaten)
• On the short lived television show Viva Variety, which was broadcast on Comedy Central, Johnny Blue Jeans sang a song titled "I Love you Ms. Pac-Man."

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".^[12]

References

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 Scoreboard for Ms. Pac-Man
• Pactionary -- list of terms and current games
• Ms. Pac-Man being used to test cognitive reasoning in chimps
• Detailed information about the Coleco Ms Pac man mini arcade