When you turn on Ms Pac-Man you will either be filled with joy or dread. For me its a mix of both. I don't remember the first Pac-Man arcade machine, because I was very young when Pac-Man first made his claim to fame in around 1982. Since then the amount of Pac-Man games that have found their way into games players home is incredible. However this is the first official Pac-Man game I have ever owned. I love the little yellow 'pac' that runs around a maze eating dots, or ghosts, but that's about it.

Options:
I have never played the original Pac-Man arcade so I cannot compare the two, but this is what's in Ms Pac-Man. Eight small mazes, and twenty large mazes. That's about all really.

Graphics:
You can't escape the fact that the graphics in Ms Pac-Man are very basic. Ms Pac-Man is quite simply a yellow circle with a blob of red on her head and on her 'lips' (if that's what they are). There is a little blurring when her mouth opens and closes, which could of been avoided if the programmers had either added a few more frames of animation or slowed down the movement of the mouth. When you use the lightning bolt Ms Pac-Man speeds round the maze and it's almost impossible to make out anything in the yellow and red blob. The ghost are just semi-circles with rough edges and black dots where their eyes should be. One nice little touch is the Pac-Cartoons. These are little cartoons that show a short and very basic story of how Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man met. It is in one of these cartoons that I saw some of the best graphics I've seen on the Lynx. In Act 3: Joiner, there is a bird that flies past the screen and drops the baby Pac-Man.

Sound:
Like the graphics the sound is very basic. There is no sound on the title screen, and no music in-game exept when you start a level or die. The sound FX throughout the game are Ms Pac-Man moving, eating dots, and the ghost moving. In the Pac-Cartoons there is some cheerful music but very little sound FX. Control:
Like all the other Pac-Man games the control is very simple, easy to get into, but very hard to master. To move Ms Pac-Man around the maze you just press the way you want her to go. She then moves in that direction until she either hits a wall and stops, or turns off at a 'junction' in the maze. You complete a level when you eat all the dots that are scattered around the maze. There are four ghost in every maze that chase you around. If one hits you, you die. However, scattered around the maze are larger dots, and when eaten they turn the ghost blue, which means you can eat them. If you eat a ghost their eyes fly back to the centre and a new ghost appears.

Summary:
On the whole Ms Pac-Man is an enjoyable, but repetitive game. Even through the games has bland graphics and sound, it's still very addictive, and anyone that was a fan of the original will love it.

Graphics:  60%
Sound:     60%
Control:   84%
Overall:   80%