I don't know how my dad did it, but he somehow managed to snag an Atari 2600 with one of the first copies of Pac Man to hit the East Coast. The arcade game was already a huge hit, and the Atari 2600 version of the game was highly anticipated. This made my house the hub of activity for a week or so. To this day I don't know why.
The arcade version of the game is simplistic, which isn't bad. Tetris is even simplier, and that's a great game. I liked Pac Man, I just wasn't thrilled with it. When we got the Atari 2600 version I was aghast. Don't get me wrong, I played that thing like mad, but looking at it made me kind of ill.
Normally I don't mind color schemes like the game used, but when these colors came out on the television I swear they could induce some sort of seizure. I don't know why they looked the way they did. I don't know why I had such a negative reaction, but I did. I did, and it tainted most of my feelings on the entire franchise.
I suppose I should have been more impressed. The Atari 2600, while amazing for the time, was still a primitive machine. It was garish, the controls were touchy, but it starred Pac Man and at that time period there was no better character to be.
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