Entex’s PacMan2 brought the maze chase home in 1981, glowing blue and red on a vacuum fluorescent screen.
Built like a little arcade cabinet laid flat, it has controls at each end, so two players can face each other across the maze. Alone, you dodge computer-controlled Ghosts; with a friend, one of you becomes a Ghost.
Interesting facts
Pulled from the shelves. Entex launched PacMan2 without a Pac-Man licence. Coleco, which held the handheld rights, took Entex to court. The game was soon withdrawn, and later copies came with manuals bearing “Licensed by Midway” stickers.
Two’s company. The “2” isn’t a sequel number. With controls at both ends, a second player can steer a Ghost and hunt Pac-Man head to head – an idea that returned in 2003 with Pac-Man Vs. on the Nintendo GameCube.
The rarest cartridge. Entex also made PacMan2 as a cartridge for its Select-A-Game console, which took a different game on each plug-in. Withdrawn after Coleco’s lawsuit, it is the rarest of the system’s six games.