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Game: Ms. Pac-Man
Developer: Midway/Namco
Publisher: Midway
Release Date: 1981
Class: Wide Release
Genre: Maze
Gameplay: Alternating
Simul. Players: 1
Max Players: 2
Monitor: 19 inch Raster, Vertical orientation, 224 x 288
Joystick: 4-way joystick
Layout: Bezel, Control Panel, PCB
Cabinet Type(s):
Standard upright;
Mini-upright (Cabaret);
Cocktail;
Cabinet Pics: 1, 2, 3
Side Art:
Boards: 1, 2
Hardware Info: Z80 cpu @ 3.072 Mhz
Soundboard: 1x Namco WSG (3-channel mono) @ 3.072 MHz
Review Score:
Player Guide:
Cheats:
Read The Review:
Ms. Pac-Man is a popular arcade game released by Midway in
1981 and was created by Doug Macrae and Kevin Curran. This
unauthorized sequel to Pac-Man differs from its predecessor on
the fact that it has different screens and a female character. It was
also one of the more successful of early arcade games.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Ms. Pac-Man is largely identical to that of
Pac-Man, with a few differences.
* There are now six different mazes (four styles, with 5 colors),
and "filled-in" walls (compared with the original Pac-Man's hollow
walls). Each maze has two pairs of "warp tunnels" connecting the
right and left sides of the maze (except for the third maze design
which only has one set of tunnels). The maze is changed after
each intermission.
* The ghosts have pseudo-random movement, which precludes
the use of patterns to beat each board.
* Instead of appearing in the center of the maze, "fruits" enter the
maze through one of the warp tunnels and bounce around the
maze. They eventually leave through another tunnel if not eaten.
* The orange ghost's name has changed from Clyde to Sue. (Sue
would later become a purple female ghost in Pac-Land, appearing
alongside Clyde.)
* The three intermissions have changed to follow the developing
relationship between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man (from when they
first meet to having a stork drop off their baby.)
Like Pac-Man, Ms.
Pac-Man suffers from a
bug in the fruit-drawing routine, which renders the 256th board
unplayable. While it may be possible to reach the 256th board using
the "rack test" cheat available as a DIP switch (usable through MAME
or other arcade emulator), the actual arcade hardware will crash at or
around the 134th board. At this point in the game, the data tables
used to determine the maze and ghost behavior for a particular level
are exhausted and invalid data is loaded. A corrupt value loaded into
the pointer to the maze data causes the screen to turn black. Though
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the ghosts and Ms. Pac-Man are still visible, the game becomes
unplayable.
History
Ms. Pac-Man was originally conceived as a bootlegged hack of Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, created by
programmers employed at the General Computer Corporation (GCC).
After the game became wildly popular, Midway and GCC undertook a brief legal
battle concerning royalties, but because the game was accomplished without
Namco's consent, both companies eventually turned over the rights of Ms.
Pac-Man to the parent company, fearing a lawsuit. Nonetheless, Ms. Pac-Man
was the first of a series of unauthorized sequels that eventually led to the
termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway.
Ms. Pac-Man was later released on the third Namco
Museum game, however there is no mention of it in
Namco's official archives (including the archives on all of the Namco Museum releases).
In 2001, Namco released an arcade board featuring both Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga in honor
of the 20th anniversary of both games. It also features Pac-Man as a hidden extra bonus
game. The later 25th Anniversary Edition allows all three games to be selected at the main
menu.
Intermissions

Home versions
Like many other games of its era, Ms. Pac-Man was
ported to many home computer and gaming systems. It
has also been included in Namco's, Microsoft's and Atari's
late 1990s series of classic game anthologies.
The Mega Drive/Genesis and NES versions, by Tengen,
and the Super NES version, by Williams Electronics, took
a few liberties. They featured 4 different maze-sets: the
original arcade mazes, bigger mazes, smaller mazes, and
"strange" mazes. There was also a "Pac-Booster" option
which lets players make Ms. Pac-Man go much faster,
making the game much easier and more entertaining. All
of these versions also allow two people to play
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simultaneously, with player 2 as Pac-Man, either
cooperatively or competitively.
Coleco released a tabletop version of the arcade in 1981.
(pictured right)
There is also a standalone, battery-powered version of
the game that can be plugged directly into a television.
Ms. Pac-Man and four other games (Galaga, Mappy,
Xevious and Pole Position) are included in a
self-contained joystick hand controller. Ms. Pac Man was
also a free game bundled with every Xbox Live Arcade
disc for the original Xbox. The Xbox 360 XBLA version
was released on January 9, 2007.
Other versions and bugs
* Some versions of the game had an "expert" level, where if you
hold the joystick up while pressing the start button, the whole
game speed doubled (including music and sound effects). Others
have Ms. Pac-Man going twice her speed while the rest of the
game went normal speed. The latter allowed for people to obtain
much higher scores.
* When playing the game on Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures
the sound effects are the same as that of Pac-Man. Also the
mazes are slightly altered in both games.
* This game is unlockable in Pac-Man 2 The New Adventures by
collecting three Ms. Pac Man game pieces or by entering
"MSPCMND" in the password screen
* There is an obscure glitch in the original arcade game. If the
player inserts a coin at the title screen, before Blinky appears,
and begins, the walls of the first maze will be dark blue instead of
pink. This glitch only lasts until the player either loses a life or finishes the screen.
* This game is unlockable in Pac Man World 2 by collecting 180 Tokens.
Record Ms. Pac-Man scores
According to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, the high-score on Ms. Pac-Man was the most revered
accomplishment in video game playing during the early 1980s. Because of the game's prestige, ABC-TV's
"That's Incredible" aired, on October 11, 1982, a Ms. Pac-Man World Championship that was won by Tim Collum,
of Boyd, TX.
Twin Galaxies reports that during the 1980s more fraudulent scores were submitted on Ms. Pac-Man than on any
other arcade title. This was due to the level of fame accorded to the Ms. Pac-Man champion, which was far
greater than for any other game of that era.
Official Succession of Verified Ms. Pac-Man World Champions:
1. 933,580 Abdner Ashman, Apollo Amusements, Pompano Beach, FL, April 6, 2006
2. 920,310 Chris Ayra, Miami, FL, September 16, 1998
3. 910,350 Rick Fothergill, Stoney Creek, ON, Canada, September 8, 1998
4. 874,530 Chris Ayra, Victoria, BC, Canada, June 30, 1985
5. 820,150 Chris Ayra, Miami, FL April 17, 1984
6. 703,560 Billy Mitchell, Hollywood, FL, January 27, 1984
7. 681,130 Tom Asaki, Twin Galaxies, Ottumwa, IA, October 2, 1983
8. 557,120 Billy Mitchell, World Class Amusements, Wilmington, NC, September 20, 1983
9. 436,500 Billy Mitchell, 7-11, Hollywood, FL, July 1, 1983
10. 419,950 Tom Asaki, Twin Galaxies, Ottumwa, IA, June 6, 1983
11. 411,050 Spencer Oueren, Twin Galaxies, Ottumwa, IA, June 5, 1983
12. 393,000 Tom Asaki, Bozeman, MT, May 5, 1983
13. 257,100 Darren Olsen, Twin Galaxies, Ottumwa, IA, March 20, 1983
14. 201,000 Joe Wingard, Whitefish, MT, June 1, 1982
15. 130,300 Rick Greenwasser, Kirksville, MO May 20,1982
16. 109,200 Jim Lennon, Staford, NJ, May 19, 1992
17. 102,080 Jeff Falduto, Belleville, NJ, March 16, 1994
18. 98,050 Jeff Thomas, Greenbay WI, October 19, 1987
19. 97,080 Noah Bratcher, Scotia, CA, May 18, 2007
20. 94,050 Braden Minor, Vancouver,BC, CA, July 10, 2006
In popular culture
* A Ms. Pac-Man machine is the basis of a storyline in the
Friends episode The One Where Joey Dates Rachel. The
plotline revolves around Chandler entering crude words onto the
game's high-score screen and then have Phoebe attempt to beat
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his scores (thus removing them) before Ross's seven year old
son arrives. In reality, Ms. Pac-Man does not have a high-score
screen, displaying only the single best score, and the game does
not allow players to enter their initials.
* In one series of strips in Bill Amend's popular newspaper comic
strip FoxTrot, Jason Fox, who is in fifth grade and still detests
girls, has a nightmare in which he is romanced by Tomb Raider
heroine Lara Croft. In one of these strips, Lara keeps trying to
persuade Jason to play her game, and Jason declares that he
will never play a video game starring a girl. At this point, Lara
says, "Permit me to reintroduce you to someone," and Ms.
Pac-Man appears: "Hi, Jason. Remember me?"
* A Ms. Pac-Man unit appears in the 1983 movie WarGames, in
the 1983 movie Joysticks, in the 1984 movie Tightrope (the
cabinet appears in the background of the bar scene), in the 1990
movie The Grifters, in the 1999 movie Man On The Moon and in
the 2002 movie Van Wilder.
* A Ms. Pac-Man machine is seen in Scrubs in the episode "My
Own Private Practice Guy". The Todd comments "Oh Ms.
Pac-man I would sex that bow right off your head. Eat those dots
you naughty, naughty girl." Dr. Kelso is also an expert at the
game, with a ludicrously high score of 40,000,000.
* In an episode of the animated series Futurama, "Anthology of
Interest II", in Fry's video game inspired segment Ms. Pac-Man
appears after her husband, General Colin Pac-Man, is killed by a
laser bolt from a Space Invader. Fry then asks Amy to tend to
"the Widow Pac-Man".
* In the 1980s cartoon version of Pac-Man, she was named
Pepper.
* In 1982, R. Cade and the Video Victims recorded a song titled "Ms. Pac-Man", using sound effects from the
game, and released it on the album "Get Victimized", a lesser-known video game song album.
* While not inspired by the game, the song Game Over by rapper Lil Flip samples heavily from it.
* In the movie Are We There Yet?, Lindsay tells Nick that Kevin
had a bad dream playing Ms. Pac-Man at the mall but refers to
her as Lady Pac-Man.
* In The Go! Team's music video Junior Kickstart, Ms. Pac-Man
is depicted running around New York City while being chased by
Blinky, Inky and Pinky.
* In an episode of The Simpsons, Marge reminisces to a time in
the early '80s when Ms. Pac-Man "struck a blow for women's
rights."
* In the movie Wayne's World, Wayne asks the owner of 'Noah's
Arcade' "I've always wanted to know what is the difference
between Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, really?", to which he
replies "Well, she has a bow on her head". Wayne responds with:
"That's it? Get right out of town!".
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