Pac-Man

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"Atarisoft made a few arcade ports of popular arcade titles for numerous systems. Pac-Man makes an excellent conversion to the Intellivision, especially in comparison to the Atari 2600 port, which goes without mention. The graphics, sound effects, and prizes are all very similar to the arcade (with the exception of the Galaxian prize, for obvious reasons, which was replaced with two additional bell levels). The maze is similar to the original maze in early arcade versions (not the Hangly Man or Puck-X mazes, which appeared in later arcade versions) but is slightly abridged to compensate for the smaller background card grid dimensions on a wide screen TV as opposed to the vertical monitors used in the arcade machines. Obviously the monster and prize graphics are taken from the original arcade version, not the 'plus' graphics (aka 'New and Improved' which appeared on the marquees of machines with the plus graphics) seen in later arcade versions.
"My biggest gripe here is that Pac-Man moves too slowly, which in conjunction with the smaller maze makes the game significantly harder. Also, Pac-Man does not 'cut corners' as he does in the arcade versions, which diminishes from the true arcade look-and-feel (that and the use of disc to move as opposed to joystick. The 'snap-on' joystick handles don't help and are more trouble than they are worth in my opinion. That is a different story though.). The ghosts also speed up much more toward the end of each level than they used to -- a fact highlighted by the background ghost sound which greatly speeds up all of a sudden after so many dots are cleared.
"Of course, it wasn't until the late 80's that games commonly had options menus. Obviously if Pac-Man had been written a few years later, it probably would have had options to toggle the speed-up cheat, toggle the normal/plus graphics, adjust maze layout, adjust ghost speed (difficulty), and so on. As it is, it is a pretty good conversion, and I recommend it to anybody." Rating: 4/5 -- Mike Hayes