Even as Pac-Man titles began to fade for a while from the blockbuster machines they once had been in arcades, the Pac-Man titles continued to roll in and still do to this day. Here is a list of some that even the die-hard Pac-fans may never have seen.
Professor Pac-Man was Midway's attempt at a bar trivia style game using Pac-Man characters. Hardly made long enough to be seen by most, even the Professor's education didn't forsee how badly this one would fail.
Most Professor Pac-Man cabinets were factory converted to Pac-Land, a side scrolling run-and-jump platformer that actually predates Super Mario Bros., which some credit the genre to, by a couple of years. The US version altered the main character and music to match that of the Pac-Man cartoon series.
Pac & Pal never saw an official US release. Running on Super Pac-Man hardware, Pac & Pal was challenging and humorous at the same time, leaning more toward a puzzle game than a dot eating maze chase.
Pac-Mania was part of Atari's late 80s attempt to revive older arcade franchises (released in 1987 alongside Blasteroids and Galaga '88). An incredibly fun title, Pac-Mania gives the game a different maze dimension, tons of new ghost characters, and the ability for our yellow hero to jump.
Pac-Man saw the first of it's three arcade game re-issues in 1996 as part of the Namco Classics Collection Vol. 2, a conversion kit containing a shortened version of the original Pac-Man alongside Pac-Man Arrangement, an updated version.
The brief run of virtual reality games couldn't leave Pac-Man alone, either. Very few cabinets of Pac-Man VR saw the light of day, but the author of these articles had the pleasure of trying on during a Las Vegas trip in 1999.
In 2000, Namco released the best-selling Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga: The Class of 1981, which contained the original Pac-Man with a secret joystick code. A few years later, the Pac-Man 25th Anniversary would be a second run of The Class of 1981, with Pac-Man now included on the game selection screen.
In 2010, Pac-Man will once again see a coin-op release with Pac-Man Battle Royale, a four player title similar at first glance to the popular XBox Pac-Man Championship Edition. Previously covered in this Examiner section, you can read more about it here.
Check back tomorrow for the final story in the 30th Birthday week, as champion gamer Billy Mitchell gives us his Pac-Man memories.
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