Pick Date: 5/20/08    This game was going to drive me absolutely crazy. Everyone wanted it and everyone wanted me to have it. It's not that I didn't like Ms. Pac-man. On the contrary, I played it anytime I saw it on location as a kid. However, I was far more interested in seeking out other grails as Ms. Pac-man is a highly sought after game. Why? Because most people can only count the arcade games they remember on their hand, and one of those is Ms. Pac-man. This in turn drives up the selling price. Nonetheless, I'm always looking for the next bargain. So I was browsing local ebay auctions looking for any that are closing that day, and I come across a local Ms. Pac-man auction about 30 miles from my house. The price was relatively low for these games, but I thought to myself it will go sky-high in the last few minutes. I readied my high bid in my web browser. In the last 10 seconds of the auction I sniped in my high bid. I was fully expecting someone else's high bid to be much higher than mine, thereby making the snipe useless.I was wrong.

What was staring at me on the screen was that I was the high bidder with 2 seconds left in the auction. A simple refresh of the browser and she was all mine. Wow. That was easy. When I picked up the game the guy said he was quite surprised that the game went so cheap, as he has had other games like a Street Fighter go for an easy $600-$800. Well lucky me. However, if I didn't snipe the auction the guy would have been taking an even lower bid for the game, so really I did him a favor. I hand him the cash, take a few pictures and load it up to take home.

First thing I notice about this game is that it looked like one of the those from the last arcade auction. I could tell because the graphics had a specific blur to them, which was just the monitor needing a cap kit. I looked up the prices of the Ms. Pac-man's from the last auction, added the buyers fees and sales taxes, and guess what? The guy actually lost money on the deal. I bought the game cheaper than what he paid for it at the auction. Nice.

The game needed a cap kit, some coin door bulbs and an original speed chip. For some reason I just don't like those speed up chips. That's not how it was played in the arcade, and that's not how I remember it. A nice gentleman from the KLOV board mailed me an original speed chip for free. Kudos go out to you sir. I install the new bulbs, a new marquee, the original speed chip and a monitor cap kit. Now this gal looks picture perfect. To finish this game up, installed a 96 in 1 Multipac kit. This kit plugs right into your Ms. Pac-man board and allows you to play 96 different Pac-man and Ms. Pac-man games, as well as Pengo and Eyes. Plus it comes with a freeplay and high score save option. BTW, if anyone asks? Yes, I have a Ms. Pac-man. Yes I do. Welcome home to the Vintage Vault Arcade!

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