In the past few years, I've gotten more involved in retro video gaming than I've been in a long time. One of the main catalysts of this resurgence was the release of the Atari 2600+ in late 2023. For those unfamiliar with the plus systems, the 2600+ and its later cousin, the 7800+, are consoles designed to resemble their 1980's-era namesakes (they're slightly smaller in total size), and to play original cartridges on modern TVs using HDMI (original consoles have to be modified to play on modern TVs, having been designed in the era of CRTs). Since then, I have been buying up and playing quite a few old cartridges, and my collection now is probably larger than the one my family had back in the 1980s (some of which my brother, who lives in the house I grew up in now that my parents have moved elsewhere, still has).
I've also picked up a few cartridges that didn't exist back then. Usually, these are "homebrews," unofficial efforts undertaken in the years since the Atari 2600's heyday, but designed to play on the original console. Despite being designed to work on almost-50-year-old technology, these homebrews are often able to take advantage of programming techniques not yet invented back then, and aren't forced to work within a time constraint. These efforts are thus able to achieve feats considered impossible at the time. In this vein, I was pleased to pick up "Pac-Man: Arcade Edition 8K" from a seller on Etsy.*
When I featured the original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 back in 2012, I said that history hadn't been kind to it. Arguably, one of the reasons for its lack of fidelity to the arcade original is that it was programmed using a mere 4K of RAM (8K cartridges were already being made by 1982, but it is said the the programmer declined this option). That said, other homebrew efforts have demonstrated that a more arcade-accurate version would have been possible even with this limitation (although with no budgetary nor time restraints, and with considerable advances in programming knowledge). Those attempts deserve credit, but even those had to leave out certain elements of the original game. This 8K version is a truly remarkable achievement, building off of some of those earlier efforts while adding all of the cut scenes and an "attract mode" (seen at the top of this entry) that plays before you even start the game. The sounds are also much more faithful to the arcade game, if not always 100% accurate to it. This screenshot, sadly, doesn't convey the full effect, as the hardware limitations of the 2600 are still demonstrated in that sprites inhabiting the same horizontal line may flicker, alternating time on the screen, making some sprites invisible when a single moment is captured (One of the ghosts, and apparently one of the power pellets, in this example). This is still a significant improvement over the original version, in which color differences in ghosts were minimal, and only one could appear at a time, no matter where on the board the ghosts were!I have come to believe that this particular homebrew is the work of a programmer who goes by the screen name of "DINTAR816," but there are so many different Pac-Man 4K and 8K versions out there, often building off of each other, that I can't be certain, and I imagine that the existence of these competing stakeholders make the likelihood of an official release remote, if not impossible.
Thankfully, there is another option! Just last month, Atari announced a new partnership with Namco, one of the features of which is that a new version of the Atari 2600+ console is being released in a Pac-Man theme. Like previously-released "plus" consoles, this console will play classic cartridges. But for those retro fans who sold off or threw out their collections years ago, new options are being made available, including a Pac-Man "Double Feature" cartridge that includes both the original (if infamous) 2600 game as well as a new arcade-approximate version of Pac-Man intended for the Atari 7800 (these new cartridges will play on original 7800 consoles, if for some reason you'd rather do that than one of the modern "plus" consoles). This new version is the work of homebrew programmer Bob DeCrescenzo, who has done a number of other works that have been given official releases in the past couple of years, such as 7800 versions of Berzerk and Frenzy, as well as Super Circus Atari 7800. DeCrescenzo has also done a number of other Pac-Man-related games that have received high praise from the homebrew community, but which have not yet received an official release.Want to see these other Pac-games? Support the new official versions at atari.com!
*In the months since acquiring this cartridge, I have learned that Etsy sellers of homebrews often have no relationship to the original programmers, who already don't make much money off of their efforts, generally just recouping expenses whenever a cartridge is sold via forums such as AtariAge. Thus, procuring homebrews from Etsy is frowned upon by some members of the retro gaming community. Please consider this when looking at such purchases of your own.
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