Ms. Pac-Man

The yellow glutton got a bow, lipstick and, above all, better maze design. Ms. Pac-Man is a rare case of a sequel that surpasses its famous predecessor in many respects, and on the Atari 7800 it belongs among those conversions that didn't have to feel ashamed next to the original.

The foundation remains immortal. You race around a maze, gobble up dots, avoid a quartet of ghosts, and after eating a power pill the roles reverse and the hunters become the prey. But Ms. Pac-Man adds several mazes instead of one, moving fruit that travels across the field, and smarter, less predictable ghost behavior. This eliminated the learned patterns with which players literally cracked the original, so every game is fresher and more thrilling.

The game came about through an interesting detour. It originally started as an unofficial modification of Pac-Man called Crazy Otto by the group General Computer Corporation, which Midway subsequently bought out and, after an agreement with Namco, released as the official Ms. Pac-Man in 1981. It became one of the most profitable arcade games ever produced in the United States, and its cabinets spread to bars and arcades all over the world.

The cultural significance of Ms. Pac-Man is enormous. At a time when game heroes were almost exclusively male or genderless, it offered a distinctly female icon who became a darling of audiences. The character even appeared in an animated series and became a permanent part of 1980s pop-culture inventory.

The Atari 7800 version benefits from better hardware than the older 2600 and offers a snappier, more colorful rendition that comes considerably closer to the arcade original. For owners of the console it was one of the more tempting reasons to acquire the system.

Why play: An improved, more unpredictable Pac-Man with multiple mazes that even today works as a perfect demonstration of how to make an arcade game eternal.