Pac-Man by Atari - Cover Review

Everybody knows what Pac-Man looks like. This is one of the most popular video game characters of all time, a creation that is easy to draw and hard to mess up. When you see a picture of Pac-Man you know exactly what you're getting, everybody does, that's the brilliance of the Pac-Man design. But apparently Atari didn't feel that the original Pac-Man design was interesting enough, that's why they decided to hire an artist to interpret what the hungry yellow guy should look like. In doing so this artist managed to take one of the most recognizable figures of all time and turn him into a scrawny little dude with a big head and bad taste in fashion. This is one of the worst video game covers of all time. It's so bad that even the ghosts have sympathy for poor Pac-Man.

We would be remiss if we didn't take note of the terrible Pac-Man design featured on this box art; it's among the worst I have ever seen the yellow guy look. Even when he was yucking it up in his very own Saturday morning cartoon, Pac-Man still managed to look half-decent. But here we have a guy with a head the size of a small planet and the body of Clay Aiken. Apparently the artists felt that Pac-Man only weighed 65 pounds, with 64 of those pounds in his over sized head. His arms and legs look like they came off of a 90 year old woman, and his shoes are a size 20. The jean shorts aren't doing much, either. And why does Pac-Man feature buck teeth? And while we're examining this horrible cover art, who knew that Pac-Man was racing around catching Frisbees in a castle environment? With only one tooth it looks like its hard for Pac-Man to chew his food, so why should he even bother collecting more? It's not like the ghosts are there to steal his food, just as long as he can out run the four dead guys he shouldn't have too much trouble getting the sustenance he needs each and every time he gets hungry. And is it just me or is the orange ghost on the left running? I didn't think ghosts had legs. Oh Pac-Man, what have they done to you?