By 1993, Namco was doing it for themselves. They no longer needed Midway or Atari for international distribution, and they kicked off their independence with a re-release of the original Pac-Man NES game, with their name on it instead of Tengen's. To coincide with this, they went and created the first-ever Ms. Pac-Man games that were Namco-developed... a full twelve years after those genius hackers at GCC designed the original game. Namco finally gave some attention to this popular game heroine, and had plans for her in future games.
 
But the thing was... well... You know Namco. When they release a port, they never feel obligated to add anything to it, and while Ms. Pac now had versions on all the portable consoles, the Game Boy and Game Gear versions were based on Namco's very lukewarm NES port. It was a similar case to the NES versions of Tetris, where the unlicensed version ended up being superior in many ways to the "legitimate" version released later. Namco's version has none of the enhancements of Atari's... No new mazes, no 2-player cooperation, and the maze was now stuffed onto one screen in much the same way the NES Pac-Man was, making everything rather cramped in comparison to the Atari version.

What Namco did kind of enhance was the graphics; the maze walls now had sort of a "3-d" look and their colors changed in every stage (this change was rather jarring at first, seeing how they went with GRASS GREEN for stage 1). They're also brighter and more pleasing to the eye than the graphics in the NES Pac-Man, but they're not as arcade-accurate as the Atari version. The sounds are less accurate as well, and for whatever reason, the cinemas are all out of sync.
 
The game didn't completely lack effort; it was still technically competant and it played okay, but it was no replacement for the Atari game, even if this version DID have a Seal of Quality.

Pac-Panic / Pac-Attack

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Genesis	Namco	Namco
Super NES	Namco	Namco
Game Boy	Namco	Namco
Game Gear	Namco	Namco

Namco is now all warmed up and ready to make some NEW Pac-Man games. Starting with... a puzzle game! This was the first console-exclusive Pac-Man game ever made, though it was, in fact, a port of an arcade game known as "Cosmo Gang the Puzzle". What Namco did was replace the characters from their sort-of popular franchise with characters from their extremely popular franchise, and this is the result.
 
Known as Pac-Panic everywhere except the US, the object of the game was to get rid of all the ghosts by dropping Tetris-shaped blocks in a playfield. Some blocks contained more ghosts, and some contained Pac-Man. What the player had to do was arrange the ghosts in lines, then place Pac-Man next to them so he could chow down. That's pretty much all there was to it.
 
Like most of the other Tetris-style games at the time, it was no Tetris. The "Survival Mode" was interesting, but had zero lasting appeal. Fortunately, the game also came with a "Puzzle Mode" containing many stages that had to be completed using a limited number of pieces. That was a lot more fun, and it made the game worth at least a rental. The game didn't hold up that great on its own, and became yet another Pac spinoff that had mild success. It ended up working out better as a bonus game for later Pac games, such as the Game Boy Color Pac-Man, and Pac-Man World 2.

Hello! Pac-Man / Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Genesis	Namco	Namco
Super NES	Namco	Namco

Pac-Man 2 was undoubtedly the strangest Pac-Man game ever, and possibly the most awesome. It was just downright WTF in about every respect, beginning with the English name "Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures", as if to say "Forget about Ms. Pac, Super Pac, and all the rest. This is the first TRUE sequel to Pac-Man."
 
Once again, the maze-munching is tossed out, and Pac has arms and legs again so that he may walk around and... Wait, he can't be controlled by the player? Why no, he can't. In this game, Pac gets to move around on his own, and he has to undergo a few adventures without some outside force taking complete control of his body. Can he do it!? Of course not. It turns out Pac is one of the most horrendously retarded and accident-prone beings on the entire planet. If left to his own devices, he would not be able to walk a block away from his house without either getting killed by a feather, having an hour-long argument with a mailbox, or accidentally tripping over 45 different objects which would kill him, his entire family, and trigger a series of events that would send half the town into an AIDS-infested black hole.
 
So there IS a player involved, thank goodness. This player, however, is armed merely with a slingshot used to affect various objects on the screen, as well as Pac himself, and a disembodied hand used to tell Pac which way to move or look. With the help of these two powerful tools, it just may be possible for Pac to become a functional member of society, giving him amazing abilities such as milking cows, picking flowers, and defeating the HORRIBLE GHOST WITCH OF NENTOR!
 
The game plays like a Sierra adventure game fuzed with games like Crossbow or Chiller, making for a pretty unique experience, if not a little (okay, more than a little) frustrating at times. By far the best feature is Pac's severe bi-polar disorder, rivaled only by Princess Peach in her 2005 DS game. Depending on the situation, Pac can be happy, severely happy, carefree, sad, depressed, suicidal, mad, really fucking pissed, tough, drunk, insane, or a total prick... and being in the right mood is very, very important as it can make the difference between walking across the street without incident, falling down a manhole in a fit of sadness, or trashing everything in sight and spreading anarchy and disorder in an orgy of violence and blood. I might be exaggerating a little.
 
The game's big drawback was a lack of replayability. It was worth a couple playthroughs just to try and see all the weird stuff you could make happen, but unltimately, it had a pretty linear path like the PC adveture games, and after beating it a couple times, it was time to shelve it. Still quite an interesting experience while it lasts, and one of the most fun games ever to go back and revisit on an emulator after so many years.

Swell Notes: A new character called "Pac Jr." was introduced in this game, and he's generally not considered to be the same as the Jr. Pac-Man character that starred in the unofficial game by Midway. He's even described as a character which "hopes to have his own game someday".
 
Included within the game was a port of Pac-Man which could be accessed on an arcade machine, similar to how the Day of the Tentacle PC game included the original Maniac Mansion game accessable from a computer. This was the first port of the original game for the 16-bit systems, including slightly enhanced graphics. Additionally, Ms. Pac Man could be unlocked on the SNES version after collecting 3 cartridge pieces. The Genesis version unlocked a different game called Pac Jr., which was like Ms. Pac, but with different layouts. Looks like Jr. got his wish! This difference in which games were unlocked on the two systems may be due to Ms. Pac already having a game for the Genesis.

Pac-In-Time

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Super NES	Kalisto	Namco
Super Game Boy	Kalisto	Namco
PC	Kalisto	Mindscape
Mac	Kalisto	Mindscape

Over ten years have passed since a true platform game featuring Pac was made. It was time to see what could be done after all those years of technological advancement. The results are what could have been a good game. The concept was quite all right. The level design was quite all right. But Kalisto took a horribly wrong turn in the area of controlling Pac-Man. The problem was, you couldn't fucking control Pac-Man.
 
One of two things must have happened here: Bubsy may have been Kalisto's favorite game ever, leading them to model their own game after their furry hero. It really seems like this may have been the case, as I frequently recieved horrible flashbacks to that damn game every time Pac refused to stand still because he was standing on a plane with a very, very slight tilt. I even imagined hearing Pac say "WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG" after dying for the fifteenth time on Stage 1.

[Editor's Note:  Actually, Pac-In-Time is based on another crappy game, Fury of the Furries on the Amiga computer.  When Kalisto ported it over to the Super NES and other game systems, they changed the graphics a little to shoehorn it into the Pac-Man storyline.]
 
The other thing that could have happened was that Kalisto noticed that Pac was round, and should behave like a round thing even if he had legs that should plant him firmly on the ground like legs are supposed to do. This not only would contribute to his complete lack of friction, it'd also explain his inability to land properly. When Pac jumps, he can never simply land on the ground; what he'll do is bounce around a couple times first. It doesn't sound like a big deal, except there are a LOT of small and often moving platforms Pac is required to jump on. This often leads to Pac jumping, landing nicely on the platform, bouncing around like a dipshit, falling, the player throwing the controller, ripping out the cartridge, tracking down the programmer responsible for this, and stuffing it up his ass.
 
An odd addition to this game is a rope which allows Pac to act pretty much like the Bionic Commando. It's an addition that could have made the game fun, but the programmers couldn't even make Pac jump or walk properly, so you can imagine how easy it was to control the rope-swinging. I really tried to finish this game on an emulator, but it just went on and ON. And I found myself forced to quit when, whether due to an oversight or programming bug or what, I ended up in a stage which had no solution.
Not fun.

Disturbing notes: Pac Jr. is in this game as well, and he appears to have aged a bit since Pac-man 2. But Pac-Baby didn't age at all! What the hell is going on here!?


Pac-Panic

Platform	Developer	Publisher
CD-i	Philips ADS	Philips (Europe)

The CD-i got a pretty accurate port of Pac-Panic made by its European developers. It was one of the best games the CD-i ever had.

Namco Classics Collection vol. 2 / Pac-Man Arrangement

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Arcade	Namco	Namco

Let's not kid ourselves. Most Pac games throughout history have often ranged from mediocre to horrible. But this was not so with Pac-Man Arrangement, a remarkable remake of the original Pac-Man game which debuted in the second Namco Classics arcade machine. This game was featured along with the original Pac-Man, as well as Dig Dug, Rally-X, and their not-so-great Arranged versions.
 
Pac-Man Arrangement comes closer to being a REAL sequel than any other game in the Pac series. He's back to being the little yellow ball trapped in a maze with many dots to eat. The improvements are VERY well-designed and they make the game... well... perfect! The graphics get a major update, with cute 3-Dish sprites and playfields with real backdrops. It has some powerups like the ones found in Pacmania, which can speed Pac up, or give him a "shadow" to help devour the pellets with him. Also added to the mazes are dash panels and warp panels to give Pac additional help.
 
He's going to need it too, because the ghosts have been enhanced as well! We're back to just the original four chasing Pac around, except they now have the help of a shades-toting monster named Kinky. The new ghost is actually a rather frail one, capable of being eaten without a power pellet, and not only that, but eating him has an effect of a power pellet, making the other ghosts vulnerable as well. It sounds like Kinky is actually no help at all... except, he is much faster than the other ghosts, and as soon as he runs into one of his brethren, they perform a fusion, resulting in a ghost with new special powers like the ability to jump or charge at Pac. In the later stages, Pac may end up facing four of these super-ghosts at once if he's not careful! Finally, there's two-player simultaneous play, and even a rather cool end boss!
 
For a while, Pac-Man Arrangement was somewhat rare, available only on the Classics Collection, which saw limited release in the arcades. However, news of its quality spread through word of mouth, prompting it to finally get a home port several years later as part of the Pac-Man Collection for the GBA. Eventually, Namco started including it in their Museum collections as well. On the whole, this is easily one of the best versions of Pac-Man to date, and if you're a fan of the game, I suggest not missing this!

THE INCREDIBLY FUCKING COMPLETE PAC-MAN GAME LIST VERSION 2