Ms. Pac Man - Atari 7800

This is more addictive than PCP mixed in with Angel Dust, then scattered liberally over some sort of vanilla ice-cream sort of contraption. Also rainbows.

I picked this up with a couple of other games a while ago, and thought this would be the one that gets plugged in and switched on for the sake of it, just so I could say I did it, then returned to its box, never to be seen again.

In conclusion, I am a moron.

This is everything a Pac Man should be, except you get to be a strange sort of transexual Pac Man with a bow on your head which just makes it all the better. I won't go into the mechanics of the game - because it's Pac Man - all you need to know is, it plays brilliantly, the ghosts are pretty damn clever and once you start playing it, it's extremely hard to put it down. The graphics are good, too.

A note of caution - the difficulty level ramps up after a few cleared stages. It's not long before the power pills only make the ghosts vulnerable for what seems like three or four seconds - so you really have to pick your moment to go on a ghost killing rampage. Also, when it starts speeding up and it all gets a bit frantic, the useless 7800 controller will cost you lives more than once. Very annoying. Other than that, all 7800 owners should have a copy of this game. For me, it's up there with Food Fight and, oh, a bunch of other stuff too.

Score: 5/5