Pac-Man

n/a

US JP
Pac-Man
System(s): Sega Game Gear
Publisher: Namco (JP), Namco Hometek (US), Majesco Sales (US; re-release)
Developer: Namco
Peripherals supported: Gear-to-Gear Cable
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code JP 1991-01-29 ¥3,5003,500 T-14017 US 1991-10 $29.9529.95 T-14018 US (Majesco) 2001 $14.9714.97 T-14018
Non-Sega versions Apple II Arcade Atari 2600 Atari 5200 Atari 8-bit family Commodore 64 Famicom Famicom Disk System FM-7 Game Boy Game Boy Advance IBM PC Intellivision MSX MZ-1500 MZ-2000 MZ-80K Neo Geo Pocket Color Nintendo Entertainment System PC-6001 mkII PC-8001 mkII PC-8801 PC-9801 VX TI-99/4A VIC-20 X1 ZX Spectrum

Pac-Man (パックマン) is a 1980 arcade game developed by Namco. It became incredibly successful to the point that it saw ports to consoles of the time and continues to see ports — made in-house, officially licensed, and homebrew — to today's systems. The only port of the game to a Sega system, however, was an in-house port to the Sega Game Gear in late 1990 (consequently, it was released early 1991).

On an interesting note, Sega's 1982 arcade game Ali Baba and 40 Thieves runs on modified Pac-Man hardware.

Gameplay

The "Ready!" screen at the start of a new game.

The basic goal of Pac-Man is to eat all the dots (or pellets) in a maze, avoiding ghosts. Pac-Man will automatically move forward in the direction that the D-Pad is pressed until he reaches a wall, but can freely change direction by pressing a different direction. By eating one of four Power Pellets in the corners of the maze, all of the ghosts will become frightened and turn blue, Pac-Man is able to eat the ghosts as well for a short period to earn bonus points. Ghosts start from a "ghost house" in the center of the maze and will respawn from the center of the screen after being eaten.

Levels are completed once all the dots are eaten, and extra points can be achieved by eating fruit that periodically appears beneath the ghost house. As the player progresses further through each level, the game's speed increases and the Power Pellets get less effective at making the ghosts vulnerable. Every few levels the game will display brief, comical cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky. The game ends when all lives are lost from being caught by the ghosts.

Unlike other versions of the game, the 2-player mode is a competitive mode where players play four rounds and compete to score the most points without running out of lives. When setting up a game, both players can decide which rounds they'll play and how many lives they start out with. The winning player is determined based on the score when either player completes all four rounds - in a tie for score, the player who cleared all four rounds first is declared the winner. The game will also end if a player runs out of lives with the surviving player being declared the winner, and the winner will be decided by score if both players run out of lives simultaneously.

Ghosts

Each of the four ghosts have a specific quirk in their AI and will pursue Pac-Man differently from one another:

	Blinky
	Character: Shadow
	Blinky is always the first ghost out and will chase Pac-Man directly. After a certain number of dots are eaten, he will receive a boost in speed.
	Pinky
	Character: Speedy
	Pinky targets the four tiles in front of Pac-Man, attempting to ambush him.
	Inky
	Character: Bashful
	Inky's movement is relative to both Pac-Man and Blinky's. He will try to position himself in front of Pac-Man, but will give chase if Blinky is close to Pac-Man.
	Clyde
	Character: Pokey
	Clyde alternates between trying to chase Pac-Man when far away, and largely ignoring him if he is close to him.

Scoring

Dots: 10 points

Power Pellets: 50 points

Ghosts: Various points depending on how many are eaten with a single Power Pellet:

• 1st ghost: 200 points
• 2nd ghost: 400 points
• 3rd ghost: 800 points
• 4th ghost: 1,600 points

Fruit: Various points depending on the fruit:

• Cherry: 100 points
• Strawberry: 300 points
• Orange: 500 points
• Apple: 700 points
• Melon: 1,000 points
• Galaxian: 2,000 points
• Bell: 3,000 points
• Key: 5,000 points

An extra life is awarded at 10,000 points.

Versions

The alternate screen setting available in the Game Gear version.

The Game Gear version of the game is relatively faithful, though due to the smaller resolution, graphics are smaller in size and the full maze cannot be shown without scrolling. This problem can be addressed by pressing or on the title screen to select a 1/2 screen size where the graphics are drawn smaller but the full maze is displayed at once. This feature is also shared with the Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance versions of the game.

Magazine articles

Main article: Pac-Man/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in Sega Visions (US) #6: "Fall 1991" (1991-xx-xx)
also published in:

• Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) #27: "October 1991" (1991-xx-xx)
• GamePro (US) #29: "December 1991" (1991-xx-xx)

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

{{{{{icon}}}|L}}
Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score ACE (UK) NTSC-U 75 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 70 Console XS (UK) NTSC-U 76 Computer & Video Games (UK) NTSC-U 82 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 60 Hippon Super (JP) NTSC-J 50 Joystick (FR) 65 MegaTech (UK) NTSC-U 70 Mean Machines Sega (UK) NTSC-U 49 Play Time (DE) 34 Power Unlimited (NL) 90 Sega Power (UK) NTSC-U 92 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC-U 79 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC-U 79 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 66 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 80 VideoGames & Computer Entertainment (US) 60

	69
Based on 17 reviews

Pac-Man

Game Gear, JP (Namcot cart)

Game Gear, JP (Sega cart)
Cover
Cart

Game Gear, US (Namco cart)
Cover
Cart Manual

Game Gear, US (Sega cart)
Cart

Game Gear, US (Majesco Sales)
Cover
Cart Manual

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 a16c5e58 MD5 e6985998d25d6c4fe36c2b8041244bb4 SHA-1 d78b6aac927692f1b67e6a4b7494e2c7e709ae17	128kB		Cartridge (JP)
✔	CRC32 b318dd37 MD5 8b8663cf7ef0a0bd595306fe28957441 SHA-1 ed27bae791e2b24966c282ad307a1b8d2140f55c	128kB		Cartridge (US)

References

NEC Retro has more information related to Pac-Man