Video Game Review: Jr. Pac-Man for Atari 2600

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: It's still fun running from ghosts and eating pellets.

Cons: Twists might not make it required for all.

The Bottom Line: 

Fun for Pac-Man fans

But twists might not be enough

For all the players

Youngest Member of the Pac-Man Family Gets the Biggest Mazes

During the 80's, Pac-Man fever swept the nation, and they created as many sequels and rip-offs as they could.  (See, sequels are nothing new anywhere.)  I only remember seeing an arcade version of Jr. Pac-Man once or twice, but when I saw a version for the Atari 2600, I just had to have it.

Not surprisingly, the premise involves controlling the main character, in this case Jr. Pac-Man, as he eats his way around a maze full of dots.  There are four ghosts chasing him trying to stop him by eating him.  But you get six power pellets that make the ghosts vulnerable for a limited time so you can eat them.  Instead of fruit like in the original, this time there are toys that bounce around the maze and give you bonus points if you eat them.  They also make any regular pellet they touch into a bonus bigger size, which slow you down a bit more as you eat them but are also worth 50 points instead of the 10 everything else is.  However, if it hits a power pill, it destroys the pill and itself.

So far, it's sounding like pretty much standard fair for the franchise.  And, really, it is.  The twist is that the maze is super big.  It scrolls, so it's hard to tell for sure, but I'd say it's easily two and a half times the size of the screen.  Might even be three times as big.  That's a lot of dots to eat.  There are also no tunnels to get you from one side to the other quickly and easily.  Frankly, I miss those tunnels, and I find it is easier to get trapped than in the earlier games.  But you can also scroll your way out of danger fairly easily if you are near the edges.  Unless you flee quickly, the ghosts do stay in the same part of the maze as you, so it's very rare you run into one as you leave one section to work on another.

There are a total of seven different prizes you can get, and I believe each one comes with a different maze.  I know that each maze was different for a while, but eventually, I'd start to get repeats.

The fire button on the joystick controller starts the game, but other than that does nothing.  As you'd expect, you use the joystick to guide Jr. Pac-Man around the maze up, down, left, and right.

You can play with the traditional four ghosts, or simplify it down to one, two, or three ghosts.  You can also scroll through and find the maze you want to start on.

For an Atari 2600 game, the graphics are decent.  Then again, they don't have to be super impressive in this game.  You can easily tell what you need to eat, yourself, and the ghosts.  What else do you need?  Still, they do give Jr. Pac-Man a beanie, and you can tell that's what it is.

Likewise, the sound consists of the standard game cues, eating the dots or turning the ghosts.  Since you can't always see the floating prize, there is a noise when it is on screen as well.

If you have the others, you don't need to get this game unless you really love the Pac-Man franchise.  But for those like me who do, tracking down Jr. Pac-Man will be well worth it because its twists are fun.