Definitely, Spin, there are many,, many reasons why classic era programmers weren't able to do stuff like this. The developers of this Pac-Man had modern techniques and technology available (2KB extra RAM in the cart to add to the stock 65 bytes in the system, as well as necessary bank switching) to them to help them create the game, but the bottom line is that they still had to figure out how to do it, which was certainly no easy task. Again, going with either ColecoVision Pac-Man or Fairchild Pac-Man as the greatest conversion of the game ever created given the hardware is a toss-up, as you can make a case for each. (I should put up the Coleco Pac-Man cartridge (with multiple Pac games in it) as a video just as a point of comparison, though of course like Fairchild Pac-Man there are already several videos up))
The controllers are not bad and work well for the most part, but they really weren't designed for the precise movements a game like Pac-Man requires. That combined with the pinpoint collision detection and oversized character sprites and it definitely makes the game a bit more challenging than it should be. Given the speed of movement, that probably helps balance the gameplay more, though in my opinion it still errs on the harder side.
By the way, I'm still waiting on a personalized multi-cart (all known games) from the same developers of Pac-Man: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/149932-fs-fairchild-system-channel-... . That also has a version of Pac-Man on it, though without the extras like intermissions, full color box and manual, the latter of which are top notch.
Definitely, Spin, there are many,, many reasons why classic era programmers weren't able to do stuff like this. The developers of this Pac-Man had modern techniques and technology available (2KB extra RAM in the cart to add to the stock 65 bytes in the system, as well as necessary bank switching) to them to help them create the game, but the bottom line is that they still had to figure out how to do it, which was certainly no easy task. Again, going with either ColecoVision Pac-Man or Fairchild Pac-Man as the greatest conversion of the game ever created given the hardware is a toss-up, as you can make a case for each. (I should put up the Coleco Pac-Man cartridge (with multiple Pac games in it) as a video just as a point of comparison, though of course like Fairchild Pac-Man there are already several videos up))
The controllers are not bad and work well for the most part, but they really weren't designed for the precise movements a game like Pac-Man requires. That combined with the pinpoint collision detection and oversized character sprites and it definitely makes the game a bit more challenging than it should be. Given the speed of movement, that probably helps balance the gameplay more, though in my opinion it still errs on the harder side.
By the way, I'm still waiting on a personalized multi-cart (all known games) from the same developers of Pac-Man: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/149932-fs-fairchild-system-channel-... . That also has a version of Pac-Man on it, though without the extras like intermissions, full color box and manual, the latter of which are top notch.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.