| PacMan´96 |

PacMan´96 - the yellow ghost-hunter has returned!

Once upon a time there was a young boy. This boy walked along the seaside with his brother and his mother. The midsummer heat would have overheated his head, had he not worn this cap which looked rather silly but fulfilled its purpose though. Along the lake there was much life: masses of people everywhere - some of them were swimming in the water, some were sitting in boats; at land they enjoyed the pleasures of delightful ice and shadowful places. And under one of these shadowy places the boy beheld something which fascinated him right from the start and should be destined to fascinate him ever since: a videogame called PacMan ...

At that time I of course understood quite nothing of computers and even less of videogames, and I did not obtain the skill to judge about the quality of these games. I had just become aware of something new and found it was great. I luckily can´t remember my first time with the joystick in my hands, but shameful it really must have been. But gladly I recognized - other than some family members not to be mentioned - the raw idea behind PacMan. (our mothers and aunts, years after, whilst watching Lemmings: "Look, things are falling down everywhere!" - what more needs to be said?)

But now arises one question: why test a game much older than 15 years which is known by almost everyone, simple in its ways and of barely any interest to anyone? Of course just because my brother has forced me to do. - No, that was just a joke: I guess that also classic games have the right for new versions, and these really have the right to get reviewed. And so be it with PacMan´96 ... it is old indeed, but still good!

of unbelievable importance: the guide ;-)

PacMan´96 can be quickly downloaded from the mighty Aminet archives as a Lha-file and get unpacked, and all of the files fit into one single DD-Disk. A nice gift is the file X-Mas96: a double click leads us to a funny picture drawn by Tom, our untiring graphic artist and divine creator of many fantastic AmigaScene-graphics. At the same time a short sample asounds, reminding me of Peter Steele´s description of the forthcoming Type 0 Negative album ("the new songs are going to sound like Black Sabbath playing ten minutes backwards and drunk"). I suppose that the sample played backwards would possibly reveal some satanic messages or a call for violence and suicide; alternatively it could also be some kind of "merry X-mas blah blah". Be it either way: I like that gag!

The guide files can be read either in German or English. They reveal that the main force behind PacMan´96 was Andreas Oberdorfer, one of the programmers of the legendary Alcatraz (some people prefer to call them "Alk-Matratz" which means alcoholic mattress) who are responsible for the whole production, despite the fact that in the guide they describe themselves as a bunch of drunk "Seppels", but fortunately would never accept living animals as a present. And I feel the obligation to say here that no one should miss all the hidden gags, and so everyone should read the whole guide instead.

The earlier mentioned Andi was really frustrated about the fact that his wonderful Amiga 4000/40 was indeed a fast and cool one but denied the cooperation with all older PacMan-versions regularly and apparently with much joy. So he tried to create a new version which was designed to be able to work together with even the most senseless configurations and to make friends with every OS. Using C++ and assembler, he and Alcatraz managed to develop a code running perfectly in multitasking and on all gfx-boards and even being playable in workbench windows! That last thing only works with 8-bit-screens (256 colours), and it is the same for all gfx-board-screenmodes.

The yellow eater and the ghosts ...

One of the most wonderful things about PacMan´96 is that it indeed runs perfectly in multitasking and on all screens. Due to the system-friendly code it needs 400 k chip- and 500 k fast-ram and works only with 68020 and OS 2.0 or better, but this should not cause any problem to the amiga-users nowadays. Of greater importance seems to me the fact that weak CPU-and gfx-power may cause the game to lose smoothness and slow down when using some screenmodes. On my 68030/50 (guess the readers already know that) a productivity-workbench-window causes the game to run much more slowly. This nice slow-motion feature may well decrease the level of difficulty, but then the game doesn´t really make sense unless I use a faster screen. When played on a "normal" screen the game is much faster while NTSC naturally is even faster than PAL due to the diffenence of frequencies. The preset screenmode is DblPAL:LowRes.

Now he's trapped...

The options and settings gloriously can be saved: controls, sound, volume of music and FX, task priority and screenmode or usage of a wb-window. In the mighty level editor one can easily create new levels and save or load them at will. During the game - in the pause-mode - the sound settings can also be changed. And of course a top-10 highscore list exists. By and grand the control and usage is quite easy - no big surprise but nonetheless a pleasure!

What can be said about the graphics and sound? Naturally the graphics of a PacMan-clone are rather simple - at least it is not necessary at all to include thousands of animations and backgrounds as they would only attract the awareness of the player and decrease his level of concentration. And in addition I feel that for nostalgic reasons one should try and make the clone in some way similar to the original, thus leaving the not so necessary ornaments away. All who want to please their eyes with cool graphics can go ahead and code their own Quake-style 3D-PacMan with spinning fractals on the walls or something like that. Really nice indeed is the funny background of the highscore screen. About the sound I cannot say much because apparently I did not obtain some kind of audio.library (should seek and download it soon!), and so I can´t enjoy the cool soundtracks (hmpf!), but what I can listen to is the original (and thus quite average) FX. Again it is obvious that the idea behind that clone was not technical perfection of the appearance but rather the revival of the original idea.

the same again, but this time with alcohol, please!

(and I really said this just because I couldn´t find any better words - and yes, I know what you think of me now)

Because of the sudden lack of creativity (as can be impressively seen in the sentence above) I ought to come to the final words of this review. The overall impression of PacMan´96 is that the game has a very "clean" and efficient code with the advantages of great stability and flexibility. It is strongly influenced by the original game and does not use any really new features, for example no 2-player-simultaneous-mode. Thus it seems to be of quite "low quality" for the standards of today. But I not only know that it was planned to become so "simple", I also feel that this is the best way. A typical comparison of mine, just to make sure how strange my thoughts are sometimes: when one tries to "copy" the Mona Lisa and gives her lipstick, coloured lenses, another haircut and then indeed a secuctive neckline, then at least the original attraction will be lost. (it has to be determined by every reader himself whether this comparison has any sense in any way or not)

Remember those times...

PacMan´96 is AnyWare. This means that the programmers will accept not just money but also any other creative gifts - the more crazy, the better. But mind you, as stated before, that living animals do not apply to this - a fact that will make all defenders of animal rights take a deep breath. And as said above the game can be found in the glorious Aminet archives.

Now to the most difficult task: the scores!

Of course it is not easy to judge over a game which really has to look like the original and can only walk on new pathways of system-friendly coding, not on the ones of great graphics or animations. The animations are very much like the original which means that the are extremely simple. I will have to find a way in between, a way that includes both points of view. So my judgement must be considered as my personal one and taken with care (like the game itself, because the programmers do not take any responsibility for any kind of damage it might cause). Nevertheless I want to state clearly that PacMan should be an essential part of every household and more important than the phone; that PacMan´96 should be the first choice of all PacMan-clones; and that our parliament should for the first time do something cool and create a law that forces all people to possession and daily usage of PacMan´96. So that the little yellow eater can do what Pinky and Brain try to do every night. :-)

And finally coming back down to the level of reality and reason: PacMan´96 from Alcatraz Entertainment Software must be highly recommended. Get it!

Graphics
Animation
SFX
Music
Gameplay
Fun Factor
OS-Friendly
Overall

(a last remark: the overall score represents the arithmetic mean value of the other 7 values. I really love the game and would have given even a higher score.)

Wolfgang Lukas
Wolfgang Lukas

AmigaScene 1 (GIF; 6K)

AmigaScene 2 (GIF; 6K)

AmigaScene done (GIF; 5K)

Editor 1 (GIF; 5K)

Editor AmigaScene (GIF; 6K)

HiScore (GIF; 16K)

Level 2 (GIF; 6K)

Smile (GIF; 5K)

Intro Screen (GIF; 3K)

Cool Graphics (GIF; 14K)

Got Me! (GIF; 6K)

Level One (GIF; 6K)