We’re all pretty accustomed to arcade-perfect conversions these days, but what about back in the ’80s where programmers had to make home versions of arcade games from scratch without any handy emulation?
The results varied enormously — at least partly because in some cases the programmers in question didn’t have any original source material to work with — but there were a few very solid examples over the years.
One pretty great arcade conversion for Atari 8-bit was the Atari-published version of Namco’s Pac-Man. It’s certainly better than the notorious 2600 version!
Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.
This was one of my favorite games for my Atari.
This might just be the first game I played on my parent’s 800XL and I think I loved it right from the start. It’s really interesting to see the difference in boxes… the version I have has an image of a Pac-Man with legs! 🙂