It seems that no micro is launched these days without its own version of Pacman or Space Invaders appearing very soon afterwards.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the versions are good.

Tansoft's Oricmunch is certainly one of the better Pacman-style games on the market, retaining most of the features of the arcade original while still managing to be very fast.

You are pursued by the usual four ghosts around a variety of mazes (a different one at each level).

Eating two of the ghosts causes the remaining two to increase the speed at which they pursue you. This offsets their inability to regenerate before the next level.

All this is accompanies by some wonderfully silly sounds. The bonus fruits from the arcade version are replaced by a variety of symbols. On the whole, the movement is very smooth and flicker-free.

The only gripe I have is that whenever you lose a life you are forced to start that screen again (very frustrating if you only had a few dots to go).

Certainly if you like Pacman then this game is well worth the money.

M.J.