Pac-Man on Atari 2600 VCS
This is a short video clip of me playing Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 VCS retro video games console.
Pac-Man, released by Namco in Japan in 1980, is the definitive arcade maze game. I'd be very surprised if anyone at all was unaware of this game, so I won't bother describing it here.
The Atari 2600 version is a very poor conversion, featuring blocky, flickering graphics that bear little resemblance to the arcade original, and mazes that don't change after each level.
Atari rushed the programmer, Tod Frye, and massively overestimated potential sales of what was an incomplete game. This resulted in Atari taking massive losses, second only to their ET game, and was to begin what has become known as the 80s video game crash.
The game buying public became sick of shoddy games being sold for ridiculous prices, and so simply stopped buying games.
Amazingly, despite it being Atari who brought this situation about, they were the only notable console manufacturer to survive this period, with the 2600 still on sale well into the early 90s.
This and the other retro gaming clips on this site aren't intended as full game reviews, but are simply to give viewers who weren't around when these games were popular, an idea of what video games used to be like.
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More Atari 2600 Gaming Clips |
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More Retro Gaming Clips |
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My Computer and Console Collection |
For retro gaming on the move, check out the new GP2X handheld console.
The Benway Empire |
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