Finally, we're at the era you younger folk are a lot more familiar with, the age when Sony decided to stick it's big ol' cock in the field of gaming, and boy, did they ever stick it! Like many third-party developers, Namco fell in love with Sony's penis, and among many other things, they decided to release several volumes containing their most popular old games for the system.
 
The first volume of the Museum, of course, included the original Pac-Man game, since it would make absolutely no sense for it not to. A lot of people, including the writer of this very guide, were confused into thinking these Museum collections contained emulated ROMs of the arcade games, when in fact, they did not. I'm going to take this to mean they were very good reproductions. I haven't actually played any of these games myself.

Namco Museum vol. 2

Platform	Developer	Publisher
PSX	Namco	Namco

For the second Museum disc, Namco gave Ms. Pac-Man a pass (for now) and went straight to Super Pac-man, they sequel they themselves made, as opposed to some ragtag hooligans from America. This was the first-ever published home port of Super Pac-Man, finally.

Arcade Classics

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

These next few years will be huge for classic Arcade compilations. Even the ill-fated CD-i had one developed over in Britianopolis. Along with Galaxian and Galaga was a choice port of Ms. Pac, which, once again, was modeled after the Atari NES port, although the new mazes were different in this one. Along with that, the graphics and music were both enhanced a bit.

Return of Arcade

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Windows	Microsoft Game Studios	Microsoft

Microsoft Game Studios proved to have a real knack for handling the classics, and after blowing everyone away with their perfect translations of Atari games in their first Arcade release (including the first ever home port of Tempest), Namco was perfectly fine with letting MS handle their games for their next two Arcade packs. Return included the original Pac-Man, along with Dig Dug, Galaxian, and Pole Positioooooooooooon.

Ms. Pac-Man

Platform	Developer	Publisher
SNES	Digital Eclipse	Williams

This port is just fishy, and there are just a lot of things not right about it. Again, this is a 16-bit translation of the Atari NES version of Ms. Pac-Man. Actually, it's the same translation the Genesis got. I mean, EXACTLY the same, pixel for pixel. Yet it was credited to a different program staff and released by a different publisher.
By '96, Williams was, for all intents and purposes, Midway. While it was Williams that originally aquired the company, Midway ended up absorbing it in the end, and Williams became just a brand name. Digital Eclipse handled a lot of classic arcade conversions for Midway. I guess they all just found the Genesis port to be perfectly adequate, and merely reprogrammed it in Super NES code. They probably got the OK from Atari and Innerprise to do it. Unless they didn't. And whatever the case, I still have to wonder how Midway had any business releasing a Pac-Man game in 1996. There is no doubt that they were not friends with Namco anymore.
 
So many questions raised, and absolutely no info to be found online. All we can do is sit and wonder.

Pac-Man VR

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Arcade		Virtuality

VR was one of those things that was supposed to become the next big thing, except it didn't. Virtuality was one of the forerunners in the movements, and their "Quattro 2000" machines appeared in a few arcades large enough to afford them...
 
Pac Man VR was among the game kits that could be used with their machines, and it's pretty much what you expect it to be. Put on the helmet, and you BECOME Pac-Man kind of sort of. In the game, you get a time limit instead of lives. When ghosts touch you, you lose time, and when you eat them (which is almost impossible) you gain it. The object is probably to clear the maze before time runs out, but I'd be amazed if any players managed to do that.
 
Unlike the original Pac-Man, the player can't instantly turn around, and it's amazing how much of a difference that makes, especially since the equipment was not wireless and turning is limited by the cords all wrapping around you. Like all the other VR games, it was really expensive and clumsy and awkward, and play sessions cost a few bucks and lasted around a minute or so. The Quattro 2000 system was neat but impractical, and take away the VR gimmick and the games just weren't very good. That's probably why Virtuality isn't around anymore.


Namco Museum vol. 3

The Museum series continues, and this time, Ms. Pac gets to be included. These Museum games included an "Archives" feature where the player could cycle through a list of games and look up various bits of history and marketing images. Needless to say, Ms. Pac did not have an entry.

Namco Museum vol. 4

Platform	Developer	Publisher
PSX	Namco	Namco

Vol. 4 included Pac-Land. Alas, based on the authentic arcade experience and not the slightly tweaked PC Engine version.

Namco Museum vol. 5

Platform	Developer	Publisher
PSX	Namco	Namco

Finally, we get Pacmania in the fifth and final Museum release, although Japan would get one more "Encore" Museum game which surprisingly had no trace of Pac-Man. I guess they did kind of run out of games, but they could have included poor ol' Pac & Pal...


Namco Anthology vol. 2

Platform	Developer	Publisher
PSX	Namco	Namco (Japan)

Over in Japan, Namco continued releasing collections, creating the 2-volume "Anthology" series that included a few old console games. Volume 2 included the Pac-Panic puzzler.

Revenge of Arcade

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Windows	Namco, Microsoft Game Studios	Microsoft

The only Pac-Man-related game the US got to see this year was Microsoft's third and final Arcade release for Windows, which was quite different than the others in that they were not ports, but the original arcade roms running off an emulator. Ms. Pac is joined by Mappy, Motos, Rally-X, and Xevious.

Namco History vol. 3

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Windows	Namco	Namco (Japan)

Japan gets some PC ports as well, from Namco themselves. It's hard to find info on this Japan-only series, but I believe these collections contained arcade roms which ran off an official emulator, like Microsoft's third Arcade release. Unlike their PSX collections, which were organized more or less in chronological order, these collections were organized by game style, and the third volume contained all their classic Pac-man and Dig Dug games, specifically Dig Dug, Dig Dug 2, Puck Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, and even Pac & Pal (finally).

Pac-Man: Special Color Edition

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Game Boy Color	Namco	Namco

1999! The Game Boy had color now! Color! How exciting! It was time for Namco to upgrade their Game Boy Pac-Man games accordingly. Like Tetris and Zelda DX, these were likely pallette-swapped versions of the original Game Boy games, though there are a couple other enhancements, proving even Namco CAN care a little. One such enhancement was 2-player game where Pac-Man and his twin brother are pitted against each other, and the other is the inclusion of a colorized version of the Game Boy Pac-Attack as a bonus game. It was 1999, so even Namco was getting the picture that a plain port of their game probably wouldn't be enough.

Ms. Pac-Man

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Game Boy Color	Namco	Namco

Ms. Pac Man got more or less the same enhancements Pac-Man did, though there's no 2-player game (sigh) and it's still based on their NES port with the weird graphics and everything. But it does include the second-ever port of Super Pac-Man, which is pretty neat. The rarity of seeing this game ported is almost enticing enough to make us forget the game isn't really very good!

Pac-Man

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Neo Geo Pocket	Namco	Namco

The Neo Geo Pocket was another handheld which couldn't quite stand up to the Game Boy and its offspring. It did get the most accurate of the Pac-Man handheld ports, but Pac-Man was ALL the port contained, and all it contained was Pac-Man. Namco was releasing all these classic multi-game sets for the PSX and the Game Boy ports with their bonus games, so it's hard not to feel underwhelmed by a port containing just this one game. And underwhelmed the NGP owners did indeed feel; this game was not all that well-recieved.

Namco Museum 64

Platform	Developer	Publisher
Nintendo 64	Mass Media	Namco

After giving their darling PSX a nice, big ol' multi-volume set of their most popular old titles, the people at Namco realized that these other systems existed too, and they may as well farm out some developers in California to fart out a significantly scaled-down version for these other assholes who aren't Sony.
Museum 64 included Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, and four other Namco games. It really kind of totally sucked.

Pac-Man World

Platform	Developer	Publisher
PSX	Namco	Namco

For Pac's 20th Anniversary, Namco had something big in store, and it turned out to be the first in a series of 3-D adventure games starring the adorable yellow ball. In this game, Pac is battling the ghosts yet again, who are no longer following the bitch from Pac-Man 2 but some mysterious guy named Toc-man. Together, they've kidnapped Pac's friends and family, and Pac is out to get them back.
 
This game was developed by Namco's US branch headed by Scott Rogers, and was essentially a pseudo-3D game with linear 2-D paths interspersed with classic-style mazes. Pac-Man had basic 3-D platformer moves including a couple lifted unapologetically from other games like a Butt Stomp and Spin Dash. It's no real surprise that the quality of the game was pretty average. You can't really expect a Pac-man platformer to be up there with Mario. On the other hand, a game can't be sold just by having Pac-Man in it these days, even if he was once the king of everything, so the programmers had to put some effort into what they did. The result is a game you might enjoy if you just really like platform games. And I guess people did enjoy it, since it seemed to do well enough to earn two sequels. If you ask me, it certainly wasn't THAT good, but here we are.

Fun Fact: Tommy Tallarico did the musical score for this game. Jess and I knew this guy back in the day, and he was always a complete fucking jackass. But he can score a good tune, I tell ya what.

THE INCREDIBLY FUCKING COMPLETE PAC-MAN GAME LIST VERSION 2