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MAME ROW #8: Pac & Pal

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved MAME Random Of the Week
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  • O
    obsidianspider @meleu
    last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 11:51

    @meleu I looked at that and it's 13.7GB for the whole set. I'll just get individual games when I need them now that I know of a good place to find them.

    📷 @obsidianspider

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      meleu @obsidianspider
      last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 12:15

      @obsidianspider so, you are back to the game, right?! :-)

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      O 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 12:15 Reply Quote 0
      • O
        obsidianspider @meleu
        last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 12:15

        @meleu Yeah, but I'm still trying to figure out how to play Pac & Pal. This is not the normal Pac-Man.

        📷 @obsidianspider

        P 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 12:22 Reply Quote 1
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          pjft @obsidianspider
          last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 12:22

          @obsidianspider Yeah, it's kind of a mess in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it it's not bad at all.

          Still a lot more complicated than it needs to be, I feel - Pac-Man is much more streamlined.

          I feel part of it is that, when you get a card, it's not easy to spot which item is now accessible unless you stop and take a second to take a good look at the screen - which may, in turn, prove fatal to you. I feel that they could have done a better job at highlighting it with a different color or something but, hey, it was over 20 years ago so usability was not necessarily top of mind at the time.

          And maybe it is deliberate as well - part of making it artificially harder.

          Also, took a bit to find out that here you actually need to shoot at the ghosts, rather than just eating them after you ate the pill.

          What does the orange section do? Is it an area where the ghosts cannot hurt you?

          G 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 13:06 Reply Quote 0
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            pjft
            last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 13:04

            Hah. Just found this as I was searching for a review of the game:

            http://www.usgamer.net/articles/weekly-classic-pacpal

            It shares the same sentiment - that it's more complicated than it needs to be - but states that "Pac & Pal is so convoluted that it becomes downright fascinating". I feel this will be a fun trip down game history lane. A painful, but fun trip :)

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              GtBFilms @pjft
              last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 13:06

              @pjft Not really sure about the orange section, it seems to switch on off as well sometimes?

              It does look like they were desperately trying to widen the whole Pacman concept with this game - but had already run out of the obvious ideas of different mazes, female pacman, etc. and tried to come up with something a bit different.

              It's quite fun, but far, far too complicated, I agree. There does appear to be scope for tactics (the order you do each level in) but at the same time the bonus stage appears to be totally random, meaning you can miss out on a lot of points there, through no fault of your own.

              I'm still not sure about that 'Pal' stealing the fruit - what kind of friend is that, that deprives you of points by stealing the items?!

              You can 'shoot' ghosts through walls as well, the whole 'powerpill shooting ghosts' thing doesn't seem to have been very well thought out!

              P M 2 Replies Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 13:14 Reply Quote 1
              • P
                pjft @GtBFilms
                last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 13:14

                @GtBFilms Yeah, still haven't figured it out, but I'm sure we'll have the chance throughout the coming days.

                And yeah, your 'Pal' is like that unreliable friend that always messes up your plans, or wants to be first at everything.

                I also notice that sometimes the ghosts seem to slow down or stop altogether out of the blue.

                Some more info on the game:

                http://arcadeclassics.net/80s-game-videos/pac-pal/

                B 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 14:59 Reply Quote 0
                • B
                  backstander @pjft
                  last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 14:59

                  @pjft
                  I read the link you posted and it says:

                  Revealing Miru allows players to receive twice as many points for flipping over cards.

                  So I guess when your good-for-nothing point-stealing "Pal", Miru, is on the screen, then flipping over cards gives you twice the points. So maybe she's not all the bad ;-)

                  P 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 15:08 Reply Quote 2
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                    pjft @backstander
                    last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 15:08

                    @backstander I didn't say it was all bad :D

                    And, truth be told, sometimes she'll pick up the item and you just need to wander around the ghost house and pick it up from her, so yes, it's a curious dynamic.

                    I believe, though, that that refers to the bonus stages only - during the game you are flipping cards that only have items in them. Still, fair enough :)

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                    • M
                      mediamogul Global Moderator @GtBFilms
                      last edited by mediamogul 16 Nov 2016, 15:47

                      @GtBFilms said in MAME ROW #8:

                      Not really sure about the orange section

                      The orange section seems to be a replacement for the tunnels found in most other Pac titles. Ghosts will slow down around the outer edges and are not able to enter from the top. You can of course use both factors to give ghosts the slip when things get tight.

                      Namco may have got the ball rolling when creating the world's obsession with the little yellow pill popper, but they never had a clear vision on how to move forward with the concept. Seeing as how Bally/Midway was responsible for creating what most consider to be the superior game, 'Ms. Pac-Man', without even having Namco's permission, the first true official sequel to 'Pac-Man' was 'Super Pac-Man'. I personally love that game, but it too was criticized for having a muddled concept and over-complicated play mechanics. 'Pac & Pal' uses it's hardware (originally the 'Galaga' hardware) and even seems to have a few of it's quirks. Most notably, the tendency for ghosts to stall out every once in a while, giving the player a random break from pursuit.

                      Like I mentioned earlier, I've been meaning to learn this game for a while now, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to experience it here, warts and all. This should be fun.

                      RetroPie v4.5 • RPi3 Model B • 5.1V 2.5A PSU • 16GB SanDisk microSD • 512GB External Drive

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • O
                        obsidianspider
                        last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 16:38

                        NOW I understand why this game won. It's very addictive once you get the hang of what to do. I can see this using up my lunch breaks for the rest of the week.

                        0_1479314298755_pacnpal-161116-163452.png

                        📷 @obsidianspider

                        P 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 17:14 Reply Quote 2
                        • P
                          pjft @obsidianspider
                          last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 17:14

                          @obsidianspider ...and when you manage to get it to work ;)

                          Good score - I think my highest when we were just trying the games was around 36k or something. I think I made it to stage 4 maybe - the first or second after the first bonus round. Likely the first.

                          Still, hope to get to play some during the evenings these days, after putting the kids to bed!

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                          • B
                            backstander
                            last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 17:23

                            Arcade Hunters Review: Namco's Pac & Pal

                            P 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 17:49 Reply Quote 3
                            • B
                              backstander
                              last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 17:38

                              The Wikipedia page for Pac & Pal says that there's "An alternate version of this game features Chomp-Chomp, Pac-Man's dog from the animated cartoon series, in place of Miru, and the game's name is changed to Pac-Man & Chomp-Chomp."

                              I think this would make more sense if a dog was picking up the items and taking them to the middle. Man's best friend!

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                              • P
                                pjft @backstander
                                last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 17:49

                                @backstander Wow. Impressive!

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                                • G
                                  GtBFilms
                                  last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 18:11

                                  Does a score achieved on the PC count?

                                  0_1479319848226_tmp_9071-pacnpal-272464796.jpg

                                  P M M 3 Replies Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 18:21 Reply Quote 4
                                  • P
                                    pjft @GtBFilms
                                    last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 18:21

                                    @GtBFilms I don't have a problem with that, as it is my understanding that this is really for fun and to get us to discover new games :) I'll leave it to @meleu to confirm or comment, though.

                                    Congrats on the score - round 8, impressive!

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                                    • M
                                      mediamogul Global Moderator @GtBFilms
                                      last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 18:23

                                      @GtBFilms said in MAME ROW #8: Pac & Pal:

                                      Does a score achieved on the PC count?

                                      Works for me. Nice score.

                                      RetroPie v4.5 • RPi3 Model B • 5.1V 2.5A PSU • 16GB SanDisk microSD • 512GB External Drive

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                                      • C
                                        cyperghost
                                        last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 19:45

                                        The game is totally underrated. It's surely one of the better PacMans from the series...
                                        Great thanks to @GtBFilms for the explanation of the game mechanic :)

                                        Competition stimulates business - fine voting and a high number of voters :)

                                        M 1 Reply Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 20:41 Reply Quote 0
                                        • M
                                          mediamogul Global Moderator @cyperghost
                                          last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 20:41

                                          @cyperghost said in MAME ROW #8: Pac & Pal:

                                          The game is totally underrated. It's surely one of the better PacMans from the series.

                                          A sentiment we will not hear repeated if 'Professor Pac-Man' ever comes up for a vote.

                                          RetroPie v4.5 • RPi3 Model B • 5.1V 2.5A PSU • 16GB SanDisk microSD • 512GB External Drive

                                          C O 2 Replies Last reply 16 Nov 2016, 20:48 Reply Quote 0
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