"Ms. Chomp [v1.2]" (DOS)

A modest clone of "Ms. Pac-Man" for DOS. While it plays very much the same way as the real one, this one is fully windowed with no full screen option.

I picked this inexpensive (of course) little gem when, right away, I noticed the icon of the cover art representing the game itself. Not another Pac-man game? It's not just that, it's a character that "resembles" a video gaming character we've grown up with: this is Ms. Chomp. Would that mean her male counterpart is simply named Chomp? I'm sure it is.

Detractors may immediately dispel my pocket change spent on this thing, and while I partially agree, this imitation game will either make you frustrated or will amuse you.

Since I don't have any older computers lying around ready for quick use, let alone old computers with a video card capable of outputting to a source for recording, I ran this software via Macintosh with the help of the Wine software. Already some challenges were faced before even starting to play. Firstly, the game isn't full-screen and is constricted to its available size. Secondly, when watching the demo gameplay, shown after the title screen, you'll notice everything is moving faster than the human eye can keep up with. Those of you who started playing noticed that everything is being played and done so fast, you wonder if this is even playable to begin with. All these things may make the computer gamer immediately quit the software and move on to another game.

Solution is simple: when the software is running, go to Options > Delay. You'll see a dialogue box where you can type in a numeric value between 0 and 10,000—with 0 being the fastest. What they mean by "fastest" is how fast the game runs (virtual processing speed), and entering 0 makes the game virtually unplayable (it's as fast as what's shown on the demo gameplay). And since 10,000 is very very slow, I myself settled with values between 3,700 and 4,500. Feel free to test any values you want, but those values are the closest I got to emulating the same speed from Ms. Pac-Man on both the arcade and the home console version (Super Nintendo, in case you were wondering). Nevertheless, about 4,000 should do you just fine.

About the gameplay: it's the same as any other [Ms.] Pac-Man game, using your arrow keys to move left, right, up and down; You also have the option to pause the game using F4 or even abort the game pressing F6. Speaking of options, you can also choose which levels to begin playing in by choosing which fruit—cherry, strawberry, peach, apple and so on. Starting from level one, when you've eaten all the necessary dots, you'll notice something strange: the next level begins without a little "breathing room" in between. Worse, there are no cut scenes, especially after the second level.

Oh sure, another puzzle game that's a ripoff of the mainstream title but this one is more difficult. For the ghosts, who are unnamed by the way, all four of them come out of their habitat and already start chasing after you. The earlier levels usually have one ghost out running amok while the other three are waiting their turn. Here on Ms. Chomp, you don't get that; Regardless of what level you play, all four ghosts run out to get you, making the game challenging in it of itself. As for the controls, they're not a fluid as it should be, despite the speed you play this in. There's a smidgen of delay when getting Ms. Chomp to turn at which direction you want her to go in. As usual, you get an extra life when you break 10,000 points. The maze layouts are what you'd expect from its already-popular counterpart. Lastly, no matter your score, you will always have to enter in your name to be listed on the Highest Scores list. That's very much it.

While I do respect Peter's simple programming of this game, this would've been his chance to add something to pizazz it up. Other than that, he tried and while it's not the greatest knockoff I've ever seen, it's something to see.

As of my gameplay, the highest score I've ever gotten was 19,970 points. If any of you have scored higher, I would love to see it.

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog made back in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming (software development) and video production, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, playing old video/DOS games, digital video archiving, and listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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