***CANNED GAME***

A game that should need no introduction: Pac-Man is one of the most popular video games, and one of the most popular video game characters, of all-time. Unfortunately, this ColecoVision port of Pac-Man never made it market and was cancelled before release. Thankfully a completed prototype of the game exists and has been leaked online, and it’s better than most other ports on competitor machines.

The ColecoVision port of Pac-Man was developed by Atarisoft in 1983, and the reason for its cancellation is unknown. Atarisoft only ever released four games for the ColecoVision: Centipede and Defender are common, but Galaxian and Jungle Hunt are considerably harder to find (the actual cartridges, I mean).

The ColecoVision Pac-Man port features a horizontal maze instead of a vertical one, but ghost behaviour and dot placement are authentic to the arcade game, and it’s possible to employ tricks used in the original (like hiding from ghosts in particular areas) in this. This port runs slightly slower than the arcade game, and ghosts take longer to come out of the cage after being eaten, but otherwise this is a faithful conversion.

More: Pac-Man on Wikipedia