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| Great question! by pinback Today, 4:10am PDT | ||||
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| I did a whole rant on this last night on Twitch in which I explained it far better and more entertainingly than I can here, but that video shows two specific failures of Ms. Pac-Man that are not present in the original game.
A quick primer on ghost logic in the original Pac-Man: When the ghosts are chasing Pac-Man, each ghost is programmed to make decisions at each intersection based on its relative position to Pac-Man. For instance, Blinky (red) always picks the direction that brings it closer to Pac-Man. It "aims" directly at Pac-Man. Pinky, however, aims four tiles AHEAD of Pac-Man. Inky and Clyde's logics are more convoluted, but this is why they all have different "personalities". However, in Pac-Man, the ghosts are not always chasing. They switch back and forth between "chase mode" and "scatter mode". In "scatter" mode, instead of aiming relative to Pac-Man, they just aim for a previously assigned corner. This adds a lot more dynamic play, as the game -- I like to say -- "breaths" in and out, as the ghosts shift between chasing you and chasing their own safety. Ms. Pac-Man, other than a brief scatter period for the first few seconds of a level, abandons this completely. The ghosts are always in chase mode. There is no ebb and flow of the action. You see in the video, I have absolutely no choices, no interesting side-trips to take, I cannot take a moment to take advantage of a scatter mode to clean up difficult-to-reach places (which is a key strategy in the original game). It's just chase, chase, chase. That would be bad enough, but remember two sentences ago when I talked about "difficult-to-reach places"? Ms. Pac-Man compounds the error of chase-only ghosts with ridiculous maze designs that have these inescapable zones and long hallways that offer zero decision-making, and are nearly impossible to get out of if you haven't cleaned them up in the first few seconds of a level. Before you dismiss all of this as a "skill issue", note that this has nothing to do with that. I know I could practice forever and learn patterns and be able to handle Ms. Pac-Man's various artificially difficult and uninteresting challenges, but the point is, it is less fun for a player of any skill level. Fewer decisions, fewer possibilities. Fewer fun-ness-es. Ms. Pac-Man is way easier to rack up points early on. It's way easier to eat all four ghosts at a time in the early levels. In my view, that's a bug, not a feature. That's because since they only chase, they clump up a lot quicker and more often. Which is dull, and robs the game of much of its joy. Ultimately, the answer to your question is, no, you CAN'T do that on Pac-Man, because you are never forced into that position. |
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Pac-Man is way better than Ms. Pac-Man. by Yesterday, 1:05pm PDT  Cant you do that on Pac-Man? NT by Yesterday, 7:26pm PDT You Can't Do That On Television NT by Yesterday, 11:50pm PDT Great question! by Today, 4:10am PDT |
