One of my all time favorite video games and characters for that matter is the legendary Pac-Man. To this day this action/puzzle game is still simple, addictive fun. However, back in the early days of home video games and early PC gaming, developers just could not make a great port for this arcade classic. As a matter of fact, most of the early Pac-Man ports turned out to be noticeably very slow, sounding nothing like the arcade version and probably gave children seizures. Of course the most disastrous version of Pac Man ever created was the absolute shit port on the 2600, but there were other poor ports that soon followed. Then I discovered Munch Man on the TI99/4a. Munch Man is obviously a Pac-Man clone, yet it was better than most of the Pac-Man ports that were available. The title was superior in visuals, game speed and audio when compared to many of the original attempts at home Pac-Man games. Munch Man also controlled very smoothly and, most importantly, was a very fun game to play. Originally the game was planned to eat the chains in the exact same fashion that the legendary Pac Man would eat those famous dots, however a decision was made late in the games development to create the chains and link them together instead, in essence doing the opposite of what Pac Man did. It was said that this decision was made to avoind any potential lawsuits that could occur regarding the games obvious similarities to Pac-Man. I really loved playing this game as a kid, especially the” invisible levels” which made for great fun. Although obviously a clone of Pac-Man, the truth is Munch Man was at its time a better video game experience than most home ports of the classic it was inspired by. It was one of my most played games on the TI99/4a way back in my early days of gaming.

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