Baby Pac-Man is a hybrid arcade/pinball game released by Bally Midway on October 11, 1982. The cabinet consists of a 13-inch video screen seated above an elevated horizontal pinball game, and the combination fits into roughly the same size space as an upright arcade machine. The development of Baby Pac-Man was not authorized by Namco. It was designed and released entirely by Bally-Midway (as were Pac-Man Plus, Jr. Pac-Man, and Professor Pac-Man), which eventually led to Namco canceling its relationship with Bally-Midway. 7,000 units were produced.
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An interesting hybrid between a video game and a pinball machine. I never particularly liked it enough to where I would want to get good at it. The Pac-Man just feels off and I could never understand how the the pinball part adds to the game other than it's what makes the power pellets appear. However, there just isn't anything like it; it is something one has to play if they somehow manage to come across one of these machines in real life.
A nightmare to emulate, but a fun and unique game
I can't help but feel as if I'm the only person who likes this game sometimes. It's not a perfect game, but I think it's a really creative and fun way of merging Pac-Man and pinball together. It's an extremely challenging game, with the ghost AI being absolutely brutal. However, the pinball table is pretty fun and I like how performing certain actions affect what happens in the maze. I think the game would have benefitted from having power pellets at the beginning, and then you could gain more by playing the pinball table. It would have made the game much easier to jump into. The presentation for the maze part of the game is also lacking. Aside from the title screen, the game looks pretty ugly and the sounds aren't much better. However, the actual pinball table has some really nice artwork, and I do like the different sound effects that play during the pinball portion. While not the best Pac-Man game, Baby Pac-Man is a pretty fun experimental title that I think deserves some more love. I would also highly recommend checking out the 7800 port, as it's pretty accurate to the original and it has a nice set of options to go long with it. If you want to play the game and you can't find a real machine, the 7800 port should help to scratch that itch.
Doesn't emulate well at all