Daily Pac-Man
LightNews LightNews
banner
dailypacman.bsky.social
Daily Pac-Man
@dailypacman.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1 following 610 posts
Daily facts, news, trivia, and other enlightening tidbits about Pac-Man! Owned and run by @RyanSilberman.bsky.social. Not affiliated with Bandai Namco.

Pac-Village discord server: discord.gg/zzEmRts
Posts Replies Media Videos
dailypacman.bsky.social
(Note: At the time of this post's original release on Twitter, the Wii U eShop was still in operation. This has since been no longer the case.)
November 24, 2025 at 6:15 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 10/10
I guess to summarize, my major criticism with the DLC is that I know there’s more ground that Atari and Digital Eclipse could have covered, at least if they were given the go-ahead. I may not know exactly how these sorts of negotiations go down, but I can gather that they didn’t purposefully shy away from material like Ms. Pac-Man on their own accord. They only could have been told “No.” Despite those shortcomings, there is a lot to like about the Namco Legendary expansion. It may be somewhat shorter in scope than the previous DLCs before it, but you can never go wrong with some of gaming’s greatest hits wrapped up in a bow - not to mention the selection of contextual extras to sweeten the deal - at the price of a singular Arcade Archives entry. Even if the old console ports aren’t 1:1 the arcade originals, they pack a lot of the same action and are worth checking out for the historical novelty. And under Atari 50, you will very much enjoy that novelty.
November 17, 2025 at 5:03 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 9/10
And it isn’t like the folks that made up GCC (General Computer Corporation) wouldn’t play ball; a solid batch of their work is represented in Atari 50, including, in this very DLC, the conversions of Dig Dug, Galaga, and Galaxian that they made for Atari’s home consoles. This would’ve been the perfect opportunity to dig into GCC’s origins and for the interviews to discuss how they came to be a trusted Atari partner - and in turn, got to develop Ms. Pac-Man. Instead, we are left with this opportunity unfulfilled because of arbitrary legal jargon that could have always been rendered a non-issue if the powers that be at Bamco decided to actually do anything about it. Ms. Pac-Man isn’t the only notable Namco title to be MIA, though; Pole Position has been strangely missing from re-releases for just about as long a time. With Atari having distributed both arcade and console versions of it back in the day, one can reasonably think this would have been a great way to re-introduce the game.
November 17, 2025 at 5:02 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 8/10
By now, we’re used to seeing character swaps in Pac-Man games and media that should’ve featured her somewhere. As offensive as Pac-Mom’s character design is, that stuff is small potatoes and easy to shrug off. However, I would argue Atari 50 is the worst exclusion of Ms. Pac-Man to date. Whether Bandai Namco like it or not, Ms. Pac-Man was a crucial part of not only Namco’s and Atari’s history, but also video game history as a whole. So for an interactive documentary to recap a slice of video game history involving Atari and Namco and not be able to go over the story of Ms. Pac-Man is depressing.
November 17, 2025 at 5:02 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 7/10
I did find it rather odd that there is a video in here where Tod Fyre talks about working on a version of Xevious for the 2600 that was never released. It’s a cool interview, but you don’t get to play the prototype that’s shown off in the footage. This modern incarnation of Atari aren’t typically shy of allowing people to check out unreleased titles and homebrews, so I don’t know what happened. At that, it would’ve been nice to play the new Atari 7800 version of Pac-Man here, though I guess its absence is so sales of the actual cartridge and the Atari 2600+ wouldn’t get cannibalized. Now let’s talk about the lack of Ms. Pac-Man.
November 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 6/10
The arcade versions of Dig Dug and Xevious included have DIP switch settings you can play around with, and the home console games have Save and Load options for you to resume a session at any given moment. Full scans of the manuals and boxes are included with every console game, and some of the other materials feature old advertisements, a Xevious design document, flyers, and uncropped versions of the illustrations that were used for the manuals and promotionals.
November 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 5/10
Alongside those Pac-Mans, you have Namco’s troupe of other long-renowned classics, Dig Dug, Xevious, Galaga, and Galaxian. Again, this wouldn’t be the first time these games get released, and it won’t be the last. There’s a reason why they keep re-releasing these, however: People still love them, because they are great games and fun to play even today. You don’t exactly get that kind of transcendental testimony from titles like Combat or Atari Video Cube. In Atari 50, they all play as well as you would hope, and are presented with the slick, soulful flair that permeates the rest of the compilation.
November 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 4/10
You don’t just get to play the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man; you get to read all about how hard Atari marketed the thing, view the artworks that shaped up its visual identity on the packaging, and listen to Tod Frye rationalize how he approached making the game. Sure, you can still point and laugh at Pac-Man 2600 if you want, but now you have all this added context at your disposal to at least get an understanding of what everyone involved was thinking at the time. And if you want an authentic Pac-Man experience, you’ll be happy to know the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-Bit computer versions are included in the DLC as well.
November 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 3/10
For the most part, the Namco Legendary Pack continues what the base Atari 50 established. There is no surprise in the re-release of five classic Namco games per se. That’s just one step below the usual Namco Museum entry. But this isn’t a Namco Museum; it’s Atari 50. Therefore, the DLC paints a story of how Namco springboarded off of Atari’s short-lived push for the Japanese market and proceeded to make bank in the video game business, resulting in a mutual relationship between the two parties.
November 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 2/10
Not only does it come jam-packed with a library’s worth of Atari games (including unique spin-offs Digital Eclipse created specifically for it), but you also have this treasure trove of supplemental materials, period pieces, documents, and more complementing the presence of these playable relics in every era. I’ve poured hours into just looking at the wonderful illustrations and watching interviews of former Atari developers reminiscing about their time with the company and the games they worked on. It’s easy to lose yourself in all those extras, and that’s what makes the Atari 50 experience so much greater than the usual drop of old games on a current-gen platform. Even if you aren’t going to find yourself playing many of the games themselves for long, you may nevertheless be convinced by Atari 50 to at least gain an appreciation for them and respect the artistry that went into their creations. This is an earnest love letter to the yesteryears of video gaming.
November 17, 2025 at 4:59 PM
dailypacman.bsky.social
Namco Legendary Pack (Atari 50) review - Part 1/10
To be perfectly honest, while there is an actual review to read here, this write-up is pretty much an excuse for me to shill Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration on Daily Pac-Man. If you have even an ounce of respect or curiosity for classic video games and the history behind them, you absolutely owe it to yourself to grab a copy of this compilation. Atari 50 is as good as retro collections get, encompassing the entire brand’s past from the glory days in the arcades to its twilight hours supporting the Jaguar.
November 17, 2025 at 4:59 PM