Lets face it, when you think retro gaming you think Pac-man… And why not? he was practically the poster child of the eighties (along with E.T and Mr.T). Yet when I was young, that was the very game I didn’t seem to own. I always jumped at the chance to play the arcade version (and still do today!) and would sometimes play a version of it at a friends house, but for some strange reason I didn’t own a single copy.
I did have a number of dot gobblers that were similar and I played those games all the time. Lock n’ Chase on the intellivision was probably my favourite, it had great graphics and sound to complement its gameplay. Much like with Pac-man, you navigated around a maze and collected coins (dots!) but also had the ability to change the maze as you played. I didn’t even know at the time that the game existed on other platforms, so I just always assumed it was only on the intellivision. Yup! we didn’t have the internet. I did end up trying it on other systems later on, but still consider the intellivision version to be the best.
When I eventually bought an Atari 2600 Jr, I still did not get my hands on Pac-man. When I think about that today it is kind of strange as there were so many copies available at the time. My one thought on that is perhaps I knew how poor the version was on the system. I do recall when my friend let me borrow his Atari VCS and games (before I owned my own 2600), I tried Pac-man and was simply not impressed. The game just didn’t look or feel right (even for its time)… I could go into more detail about that but there are already so many articles and videos about that everywhere.
The Atari 2600 did manage to have several other dot gobblers at the time, Ms. Pac-man and Pac-man Jr being two great examples. Unfortunately for me I didn’t own those games either (perhaps I thought they would be just as bad). The one game I did own and play all the time was Mouse trap, a game very similar to Lock n’ Chase in that you are able to manipulate the maze and trap the enemies (in this case the cats). Also it had that interesting twist to the power pellet concept in that you could turn into a dog and eat said cats. It was one of those games where i would question “Why wasn’t Pac-man more like this?”
Pac-man will always be a good part of my childhood, not just the video game but the character himself . I played the board game and the watched the cartoon on Saturday morning, I even ate the breakfast cereal… mmm dots for breakfast! So it is strange that I didn’t own a single copy of the game. Today I know I own at least two or three copies of it for the Atari 2600, much like the game E.T. almost every collector has more than one in their collection and probably has no idea where that got them from. Also thanks to movies like Pixels, a new generation can come to love the little yellow guy who funny enough it creator originally envisioned being a pizza! (imagine that) 
Brian Pudden