Pac-Land (1984)

Pac-Land is one of those games that's very interesting in terms of its place in video game history, but isn't that fun to play in this day and age (at least for me). But once upon a time, there was a fellow named Shigeru Miyamoto, who came up with a game called Super Mario Bros -- but it was Yoshihiro Kishimoto's weird Pac-Man spinoff game that would serve as one of his primary sources of inspiration.

Pac-Land is a sidescrolling platformer -- one of the first -- which has you play as the cartoon version of Pac-Man (so he's got a face, legs, and arms). Your goal is to run through town, the forest, etc; rescue the fairy at the end of the stage; and return back home. Your main obstacles are all the ghosts flying around -- sometimes in planes, on pogo sticks, or even in UFOs. There are hidden goodies to find, such as fruits and power pellets, if you jump at the right spots or push against the right objects. And compared to other arcade games of that time, Pac-Land is very bright and colorful, and the characters are more animated and expressive. The game looks like a bad MS Paint by today's standards, but in 1984, just having a blue sky background (instead of the default black) was in itself kind of a big deal.

The thing that ages Pac-Land the most though are its wonky controls. By today's standards, movement in this is clunky and cumbersome, and jumping is a crapshoot. In the Famicom (NES) version, you use the action buttons to move left and right, and the D-pad to jump. Why, you ask? Well, the arcade version used buttons for movement. Why, you ask? Because at first the Pac-Land machines were just repurposed Professor Pac-Man quiz game cabinets, which only used buttons. (As it turned out, kids didn't want to go to the arcade to LEARN.) Movement in the game was also inspired by Konami's arcade release of Track and Field, which had you button-mash to run forward.

If you can beat Pac-Land, hats off to you! I found it tough just to clear a couple stages (though that's hardly unusual for an 80s arcade title). But that's all you really need to play to get a feel for this one, because this was essentially a prototype game for a genre that would find its bearings over the next few years, and ultimately become the genre that anyone would immediately think of first whenever the term "video games" comes to mind.

The initial idea of making Pac-Man into some platform runner is an odd choice, but the insanely frustrating controls and janky feel make this absolutely necessary to avoid.

Pac-Man is on a trip to return a lost fairy back home to Fairyland. Pac-Man must avoid cars, planes, windows, pogo sticks, and what not filled with ghosts and can pick up a power pellet to eat them for points. Pac-Man can dash as well as jump and move left and right, and operates on a strict time limit.

The pacing is fairly shoddy, easily getting caught by random ghosts if Pac-Man moves too quickly, but also falling to one's death is pretty easy if Pac-Man moves too slowly. The absolute pain point, though, are ponds that require a perfectly timed jump and enough taps to cause arthritis - even then the player might not have a chance to make it. There's not really a continue system so most game overs will happen fairly early and it's a miracle to get past some of the longer ponds. At the end the player has to return backwards using magic boots that make jumping into flying, but it's still very easy to get caught on a ghost's pixel.

Trips consist in what appears to be cartoony looking visuals, but they mostly seem like a mediocre effort in MS Paint. The most memorable visual is the "BREAK TIME" sign in between rounds and a church on a hill in the background - an odd choice. The game theme feels cheery at first but gets irritating quickly.

While it could have been an interesting experiment that deviates from the Pac-Man formula, this platformer is painfully frustrating and isn't just tuned to eat quarters - it's tuned to throw players in a lake with a weight tied to their feet.