10 replies to this topic

[shadow460]

What's the deal with this game? I know sometimes there are really awesome games out there, and when I play 'em I think they're useless junk.
Is that the case here or is Ms. Pac-Man a little disappointing?

Maybe I'm just too hard on it 'cause the arcade was so good.

[jaybird3rd]

shadow460, on Sat Sep 24, 2005 12:13 AM, said:

What's the deal with this game?  I know sometimes there are really awesome games out there, and when I play 'em I think they're useless junk.
Is that the case here or is Ms. Pac-Man a little disappointing?

Maybe I'm just too hard on it 'cause the arcade was so good.

That's interesting ... Ms. Pac-Man is generally considered to be one of the better arcade ports available for the 7800. I used to play the coin-op here in my hometown, then come home and play the 7800 version, and I was more than satisfied with the job that GCC did of bringing the game to the 7800. I've always thought it was one of the most authentic ports because GCC also developed Crazy Otto, the Pac-Man mod kit which eventually became Ms. Pac-Man (after it was bought by Namco).

Could you be a little more specific about the aspect(s) of the game that disappoint you?

[Bakasama]

My guess is that you been spoiled by the hacked Ms. Pac-Man game that's been around arcades. The "official" version of Ms. Pac-Man is considered slow by players that played the sped up version. I believe that version is more popular than the regular Ms. Pac-Man. I'm kind of suprised that nobody hacked the 7800 Ms. Pac-Man to make a speed up version.

[shadow460]

Things that get to me are the speed and the fact it doesn't register diagonal moves. Normally you can move the stick diagonally and Ms Pac Man will turn the next corner.
In this version she sits still until you move the actual directioin you want her to go.

[NE146]

shadow460, on Sat Sep 24, 2005 11:32 PM, said:

Things that get to me are the speed and the fact it doesn't register diagonal moves.  Normally you can move the stick diagonally and Ms Pac Man will turn the next corner.

Well.. to be fair, in the arcade version it used a 4-way joystick. You couldn't push diagonally. And that's what you're comparing it to isn't it? The arcade version that was so good?

[Bakasama]

Like I said before, you're so used to playing the speed up hack that you consider the REAL MIDWAY MS. PAC-MAN to be sluggish and slow. The hacked Ms. Pac-Man is I think more common than the the non hacked one.

GCC, who hacked Crazy Otto which became Ms. Pac-Man also made the 7800 console, the 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man, and the 7800 of Ms. Pac-Man. So I think they based the 7800 version of Ms Pac-Man on the original version of Ms. Pac-Man. If you want a faster version, somebody has to hack the game to make it like the hacked version of Ms. Pac-Man.

[Agent X]

As I had said in this post from a few months ago, I feel the 7800 version is actually one of the best conversions of the game ever. Ironically, I mentioned that the speed and overall feel of the game is very similar to the arcade game. For the record, the hacked "speed-up chip" doesn't count in my book, as it's not an official version of the game.

shadow460, on Sun Sep 25, 2005 2:32 AM, said:

Things that get to me are the speed and the fact it doesn't register diagonal moves.  Normally you can move the stick diagonally and Ms Pac Man will turn the next corner.
In this version she sits still until you move the actual directioin you want her to go.

Um, move the stick diagonally? It's a 4-way joystick...there is no diagonal movement!

A popular technique used by expert players of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man (and some other games in the series) is to look ahead of where your character is going, and move the joystick in the direction you want to turn before you reach the corner or intersection. For example, if you're traveling to the right and you see a path ahead where you want to turn up, then shortly before you reach the path, hold the joystick up while the wall is still above you. Since you're pushing the joystick toward the wall, your character doesn't actually turn, but rather keeps moving to the right. When you finally reach the corner to the upward path, you'll make the turn with no hestitation. This technique also works on most of the home versions, including the 7800 version of Ms. Pac-Man.

[Danno]

Sometimes I read stuff that makes me do this:

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[shadow460]

Yeah, the technique of pre moving the stick works well here, too. It seemed like in the arcade the stick did go diagonally, though, while it was only registering and up/down or sideways move. Looking at the actual stick reveals that it is indeed pointed in a diagonal direction, but of course, your character doesnt move that way. One can rotate the stick from one direction to the other to make their moves more smoothly. You have to be careful that the stick (a CX-40 in my case) doesn't move that diagonal direction on the home version, or Ms Pac Man will stop.
I figured some folks would wonder a bit when I mentioned diagonal moves, but I don't expect Ms Pac Man to move that way!

Seeing that 99% of the time I played on machines that moved at a reasonable speed, that's what I think of when I consider Ms Pac Man. The speed was the one thing I noticed most between versions, and I hated the snail's pace ones.
Typically, I found that slow machines gave five or six lives to start, and fast ones gave three.
I've found that the 7800 version is only a tad slower than what I'm used to.

I've been playing it more, because I'm used to this being a good game. It's growing on me a bit, especially since I got used to making straight moves and watching out for the accidental diagonal. Starting on a higher setting causes the speed to increase to a reasonable level, too.

Off the subject, Mitch or someone, I got a question. The ignore feature isn't ignoring users from this screen that I'm typing my own reply on--all replies show up minus the pictures. Is there a way to fix that?

[PacManPlus]

7800 Ms. Pac-Man with 'Speed Up Chip'

[Danno]

PacManPlus, on Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:34 PM, said:

7800 Ms. Pac-Man with 'Speed Up Chip' 

Yeah, great job as usual, PMP.

Works Great on my CC2.