Unlike Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man was developed by Namco themselves in 1982, so could be considered the first ‘official’ sequel to Pac-Man.

The fact is: it is arguably inferior to both the aforementioned Midway Pac-Man games, which is a little embarrassing. That said: it is still a decent game in its own right; maybe not quite as ‘pure’ or ‘hardcore’ as Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, but good nonetheless.

In Super Pac-Man this time you are eating food in a maze, while at the same time avoiding the chasing ghosts.

As well as the usual power pills, that turn the ghosts blue (allowing you to eat them), there is also a ‘Super Pill’ that turns Pac-Man huge, allowing him to eat his way through pretty much anything, other than solid walls.

The maze also contains doors that can be opened with keys, which does open up the possibility of actually getting into the ghost pen in the centre of the screen. If there are two or three ghosts in there and they are blue then it might be worth going in to eat them if you’re close by, but you have to escape quickly after doing so because they re-spawn right next to you after a second or two.

The food that you eat in the maze changes every level and is worth progressively more as you ascend the stages, and the maze changes colour too, although the layout doesn’t seem to differ from stage to stage, which is weird.

Super Pac-Man is an enjoyable enough Pac-Man sequel. It’s nothing particularly special though.

More: Super Pac-Man on Wikipedia