Retro Arcade featuring Pac-Man is a "plug & play" game compilation featuring twelve Namco arcade titles. It was developed by HotGen and released by Jakks Pacific in 2008 under the "Plug it in & Play TV Games" brand. It is the final installment in Jakks Pacific's Pac-Man plug & play line, and is officially considered "Edition 5" of the series. It is the successor to Arcade Gold featuring Pac-Man, and would (unofficially) be followed by the Pac-Man Connect & Play by Bandai.
Overview[]
The Retro Arcade featuring Pac-Man console is designed to resemble the control panel of the U.S. Pac-Man arcade machine (though it does not use the original Bally Midway artwork). It features a red joystick and two buttons on a solid black base; a faux-coin slot appears on the front of the unit. Two stickers featuring Pac-Man and the Ghosts are on the sides of the unit.
Earlier revisions of the console have the top base pattern silkscreened onto the plastic (save for the Pac-Man logo, which is a small sticker), and have the side areas painted yellow. Presumably to save costs, later revisions merely place a giant sticker over the entire top base, and have black-painted side areas. Due to its higher quality, the yellow-sided version is generally more desired by collectors.
This console is based on Sunplus hardware, as is the case for the majority of Jakks Pacific plug & play systems. The player's high scores are saved into memory, and can be erased from the game selection menu.
Games[]
Retro Arcade featuring Pac-Man's game list is effectively a combination between the titles seen on Arcade Gold featuring Pac-Man and the Ms. Pac-Man plug & play (while excluding Ms. Pac-Man itself). As such, it includes the following twelve games:
- Pac-Man (1980)
- Pac-Man Plus (1982)
- Super Pac-Man (1982)
- Pac & Pal (1983)
- Galaxian (1979)
- Bosconian (1981)
- Galaga (1981)
- New Rally-X (1981)
- Dig Dug (1982)
- Xevious (1982)
- Pole Position (1982)
- Mappy (1983)
The game ports were developed by HotGen Limited, and are closely modeled after their arcade counterparts. All games feature close approximations of the original graphics and sound effects, though some of the games have their sound pitched an octave higher or lower (depending on the title). Several of the games have their life indicators and scoring information moved to the righthand side of the screen. The player can pause and/or exit out to the game selection screen mid-game by pressing the "Menu" button.
All included games are identical in performance to either their Ms. Pac-Man plug & play version or their Arcade Gold featuring Pac-Man version (though Xevious reportedly has glitches that were not present on earlier consoles).[1] Pole Position is controlled by twisting the joystick clockwise and counter-clockwise, with the face buttons acting as acceleration and gear shifting.
Trivia[]
2009 "boxed" version of the console.
- Retro Arcade featuring Pac-Man was originally released in a blister package in late 2008. Shortly after this, Jakks Pacific would rebrand and relaunch the "Plug it in & Play TV Games" brand with a different logo and a uniform, boxed packaging style. The Retro Arcade system would be reissued in the boxed format by January of 2009.
- The brand relaunch may be tied to the cost-cutting measures seen on later Retro Arcade console variants. However, the lower-quality "black-painted" version of the unit was also sold in the original blister packaging.
- The games ported from the Ms. Pac-Man plug & play (Galaga, Xevious, Pole Position, and Mappy) have their copyright information altered to credit Namco Bandai Games. The Arcade Gold-ported games, however, still have their copyright notices removed entirely.
- The Sunplus-based plug & play port of Pac-Man is connected in code to a port of Ms. Pac-Man; however, Ms. Pac-Man is not natively accessible on any Pac-Man-branded system (or vice-versa). The games can be switched between each other (on a technical level) via a one-byte code change.[2][3]
- As with many Jakks Pacific plug & plays, a Debug Mode can be accessed by entering a command on the copyright splash screen (hold Up, press and hold A, release Up, and press Down). This mode includes (in order) a hardware test mode, a save data test, a color test mode, a music test mode, and a "Pac-Man" color test (featuring rows of Ghosts).
- The music test mode notably allows the user to play nearly the entire sound sets of the included games, featuring all music tracks and sound effects. Notably, the Retro Arcade debug menu includes the sound data for both the unused Ms. Pac-Man game and Jr. Pac-Man; the latter of which is likely connected to a scrapped port for the Super Pac-Man Collection.
- While ultimately the final Pac-Man plug & play released by Jakks Pacific, a Retro Arcade featuring Space Invaders system would be released by the company in 2011; reusing the same branding and controller mold as the Pac-Man console. The Space Invaders unit would be the last traditional, joystick-based plug & play produced by Jakks Pacific.
- The design of the Retro Arcade featuring Space Invaders system would effectively be copied by MSI Entertainment for a single-game Space Invaders plug & play in 2016. MSI would further reuse this "Retro Arcade"-derived design for a Ms. Pac-Man plug & play and the Namco Classics Vol. 1 compilation.
- The console's ROM data ends in a string reading "CARL", presumably in reference to developer Carl Muller.
- The title logo for Arcade Gold featuring Pac-Man appears to be unused within the Retro Arcade system's data.
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