The original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was a crappy game, no doubt about it.  Atari probably knew very well that they shouldn’t have released it like it was but they did anyhow.  Call it greed, call it stupidity, call it whatever you want.  The point is, it was a crap game.  Leave it to homebrew developers to take what is broken, or crap, and churn out a much better version of their own.  While there are plenty of homebrew Pac-Man releases for the Atari 2600, one stands out for me.  Pac-Man 8K Edition by an Atari Age forum member blows most of the others away in many ways.

DINTAR816 went above and beyond with his version of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600.  Just look at the video for proof of that.  I am not going to taint this version with showing a video of the crappy Atari version, fans of retrogaming already know how bad it was.  For those that have never seen the Atari version, don’t.  Just look at the 8K Edition and know it is one of the best for the platform.  While still not arcade perfect, the 8K Edition is closer than Atari’s official version ever was.

There is still flicker and the like but that is probably a hardware problem as many games on the 2600 have flicker problems.  DINTAR816 has been able to include cutscenes just like the arcade version bringing this version closer to the original.  All in all, this is Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 and probably the best version we are going to see as the hardware is probably just not capable of an arcade perfect version.  Looking at Ms. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 does give hope that someday someone will get even closer than 8K Edition has.

For more modern gamers looking for a little more current edition of Pac-Man should check out Pac-Man 256 on Android and iOS.

Grab your copy of Pac-Man 8K Edition over on Atari Age. For all things Pac-Man, check out Amazon.

Carl Williams

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