My Mistress: Ms. Pac Man - 07/23/06

In the summer of 2005, I had the privilege of getting to pick up an old Asteroids arcade machine for a mere 50 clams. I was absolutely thrilled to have this item in my home. But after repeated failed attempts of getting my wife to come out and play against me, I finally had to ask why the game wasn't of interest to her: "I never really played that game when I was a kid" she said. "I was more of a Pac Man person." That was really all I needed to hear, since although I loved Asteroids as a child, one of the games I enjoyed playing even more than that was………… Ms. Pac Man. Yeah, it sounds funny hearing a guy say they were a Ms. Pac Man freak, but you gotta look at it like this: Pac Man was fun at the time, but at the time that MS. Pac Man came on board, I was in that age range of starting to notice girls, and was well aware of what it WAS that I was noticing, that made me start to notice girls…. The legs, the lips, the………. Well, the other things that girls have that guys don't.  8^]   And when Ms. Pac Man appeared in local arcades, like the GALAXY at our local mall, you could see Ms. Pac Man on the actual machine showing off what she had- They even integrated her sexy MOLE into the game graphics! That was just enough to start me down the path of being a Ms. Pac junkie..

Aside from the usual "sex sells" motif of the game, it was simply hands-down more fun to play than its predecessor- After approximately every 2 boards, the intermissions would kick in, consisting of Act I, Act II, and Act III. It's usually hard to beat an original hit, but Ms. Pac lit up the world as a sequel to the original game. Who would ever have known it was running the same hardware, with an added daughter-board to bring her new Ms. Pac look up to the monitor..

OK, so back to my situation- After the Asteroids machine found its permanent place in our garage, I decided that it might be time to get it a buddy, to stand by its side in the lonely room of our home. I watched online auctions for about 6 months, waiting for a Ms. Pac Man to pop up in an area where I could drive to, and wasn't carrying a whopping $1500 price tag (yes some do out there). Finally in May, one popped up on eBay in the Big Apple- Brooklyn to be exact. I watched the auction like some kinda psycho for the final 2 days, ensuring that noone would outbid me. When the auction closed, I was at work, so I couldn't react how I really wanted to (that is, to stand up on my desk doing the Cabbage Patch, and chanting "I-WON-MISS-PAC………MAN- I-WON-MISS-PAC………….MAN"). But no matter how I ended up acting, it was MINE. And the final bid? $207. I STOLE it for that price!

I made the trek to NYC on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and had the machine back home, sitting in my driveway, within 5 hours. The cool thing about the location of the machine was, it was in a warehouse just off of Coney Island Parkway- It also had some remnants within (old ticket stubs, broken plastic toys that you would see at a carnival, etc) that seemed to provide the hint that the machine may have been at one time within the realm of Coney Island's Amusement Park. That just added to the joy of having this game for my own.

When I unloaded the game from my truck, and wheeled it into the garage, I could tell almost immediately that I had a lot of work to do- The game's power cord was hanging by a thread, the side art on both sides of the machine was littered with traces of gloss black overspray, and the control panel which held the joystick looked like- well, I'll be honest: it looked like it was used in an amusement park in NYC… The key however was this: EVERYTHING WORKED. And when that's the case, everything else can be repaired or replaced over time. Plus I knew this going in, so it was no surprise- the seller had been very detailed in their auction listing, and provided plenty of pics. The only thing that needed real attention was the light assembly which powers up the marquee on the top. You GOTTA have the lit marquee if you want to have an arcade machine!

As you can see in the pics on this page, the unit's come a looooooooooong way, and only needs a little more cleanup on the front graphic to look stellar. I continue to make improvements to her as time allows, and will continue to add pics to this page of my accomplishments. I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me in getting this machine back to its much-improved condition, including Mark Davidson's basementarcade.com This guy is a walking vintage game MASTER. I highly recommend him if you need someone to bounce questions off of, when doing a resto like I did with my Ms. Pac Man box. I also suggest you check out mikesarcade.com for some hard-to-find items you may end up needing for your machine.

Thanks for reading!  - FETT

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