Ms. Pac-Man

System: Sega Genesis

Cheats Used: None

Now this is what I call a fantastic arcade translation! In this version of Midway’s classic game produced by Tengen (Atari’s multiconsole development arm), you not only get a perfect port of the arcade original, but you are given a multitude of options to customize the experience. First, you have the ability to set the difficulty level at Easy, Normal, Hard or Crazy. Second, you can turn on the “Pac Booster” setting which allows you to move two or three times faster while keeping the ghosts at regular speed. This setting makes the game a lot more fun (at least for me), but it’s a double-edged sword because in the later levels when the ghosts speed up, it becomes harder and harder to dodge them, thus making the game more challenging.

Third, in addition to the regular one-player game, there are options for two-player cooperative, two-player competitive and two-player alternating. Last but not least, there are no less than four different sets of mazes to choose from: Arcade, Strange, Big or Mini. A nice feature is that from the start you can choose to begin on a later level up to level seven and once you’re past that and into the higher levels, you can continue up to four times when you lose all your lives, although continuing resets your score to zero. This is a good way to get some practice on the tougher mazes. Using my continues, I was able to get to level 14 or 15, far beyond what I was ever able to do in the original game. Tengen ought to be commended for creating such a superlative experience and if you like Pac-Man at all, you should definitely give this one a try. You won’t be disappointed.