| Pac-Man Plus | |
|---|---|
North American Arcade Flyer |
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| Developer(s) | Bally Midway |
| Publisher(s) | Bally Midway |
| Platform(s) | Arcade |
| Release date(s) | 1982 |
| Genre(s) | Maze |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Cabinet | Standard |
| Arcade system | Namco Pac-Man |
| CPU | 1x ZiLOG Z80 @ 3.072 MHz |
| Sound | 1x Namco WSG (3-channel mono) @ 3.072 MHz |
| Display | Raster, vertical |
Pac-Man Plus is an arcade game released by Bally Midway in 1982, and is the 4th title in the Pac-Man series of games.
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The gameplay in Pac-Man Plus is nearly identical to that of the original Pac-Man. The player controls Pac-Man and attempts to score as many points as possible by eating all the Pac-Dots in the maze, while avoiding the ghosts that roam the maze. Eating a Power Pellet causes the ghosts to turn blue and become vulnerable for a brief period, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for extra points. When the maze has been cleared, a new maze is presented and gameplay continues.
The most noticeable differences between the original game and Plus are various tweaks to the graphics: The maze is green instead of blue, vulnerable ghosts are shortened and have a leaf sticking out of them, the fruits have been replaced by new items (including a can of Coca-Cola), and Blinky is slightly cross-eyed. In addition to these cosmetic changes, Plus also changes the gameplay slightly: Eating an item causes the ghosts to turn both vulnerable and invisible, and doubles their point values while they are vulnerable. Eating a Power Pellet sometimes has unpredictable results, such as turning the maze invisible or turning only three out of all four ghosts blue. The ghosts are also faster and more aggressive than in the original game, making the game seem overall faster-paced and more difficult.
Despite Midway advertising it as "the only legal PAC-MAN conversion package"[1] and claiming it was "New!" and "Exciting!"[2], Pac-Man Plus is actually just a single modifier chip that replaces the game's program code and graphics.
Because there were so few differences between Pac-Man and Pac-Man Plus and because the game was released right before the video game crash of 1983, Pac-Man Plus was never ported to home video game systems or computers. However, there have been efforts by some homebrew game developers to port Pac-Man Plus to classic game consoles such as the Atari 2600,[3] and more recently the Atari 5200 [4] and the Atari 7800.[5] In addition, Jakks Pacific released a new Pac-Man TV Games collection that featured Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, Super Pac-Man, and Pac & Pal.[6] Pac-Man Plus is also featured in TV Games Pac-Man Gold: Edition.
Pac-Man Plus was popular enough to be featured in the video arcade game show Starcade as one of the games in rotation.
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