Game of the Week: Ms. Pac-Man

Following the huge success of Pac-Man in the arcades in 1980, the producer of the game in the U.S., Midway, just had to come up with a sequel game that would be fun for players but also remain true to the original game.

What Midway came up with was Ms. Pac-Man, and it followed through on everything a Pac-Man fan could want. The basic gameplay was still there, as were the bright colors and fun sounds, but there were also new characters, new graphics and, most importantly, new mazes for gobbling up pills and monster ghosts.

Basically, Ms. Pac-Man did the impossible. It improved upon Pac-Man, perhaps the most popular video game of all time. There were more mazes than just the one that Pac-Man had, and each maze came in different color schemes.

Ms. Pac-Man proved so popular, it was ported to many of the home video game systems of the time, including the Atari 2600 and the NES. The game still shows up today in ports to computer systems and modern video gaming systems, and there's even been several handheld versions of Ms. Pac-Man as well as small, tabletop versions.

If you're a fan of classic arcade games, you just about have to love Ms. Pac-Man. It's such a simple game, sending a yellow Pac-Man with a red ribbon around to munch on dots, that you just have to love it.