Using Atari’s 2600+ Pac-Man edition takes me back to pumping all my pocket money into arcades

As a retro console, the Atari 2600+ is a strong example of how to do things right. The fact that it allows you to use cartridges rather than pre-loaded ROMs not only allows you to pick up rereleased games for it but also gives your classic Atari 2600 cartridges a new lease of life. And despite its few missteps, the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition builds from this strong base.

In our original Atari 2600+ review, we described how the retro console was a ‘loving recreation of the original hardware’ and that’s very much the case with the Pac-Man Edition. The main differences? It now comes with a wireless CX40+ joystick, rather than the awkward wired one we criticised in our original review. Oh yeah, and every inch of it is covered in Pac-Man styling.

Honestly, if you’re of a certain age – which I am – and prone to nostalgia – no doy – you’ll likely be charmed by this console. From the yellow color that references the puck-shaped protagonist’s hue to the light-up image of him being chased by his ghostly foes on its front, this edition wears its affiliations on its sleeve. And, as a game, Pac-Man is every bit the classic you remember – even if the original 2600 port that’s also included is a bit of a bust.

Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition review: price & availability

Given the game's ghostly antagonists, it’s pretty apt that the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition was released on October 31, 2025. You can buy it for a list price of $169.99 / £129.99 / AU$260.99, which feels pretty decent value to me.

Yes, retro consoles like the SNES Mini or PlayStation Classic were cheaper at $79.99 / £69.99 / AU$119.95 and $99.99 / £89.99 / AU$149.99, respectively, but they were glorified emulators in an attractive package. Although it’s technically still using emulation, the Atari 2600+ runs off cartridges rather than ROMs and is backwards compatible with the original cartridges, making it far more flexible than these consoles.

I’m less convinced by the pricing of its games, though. New cartridges retail for $29.99 / £24.99 / around AU$50.48 each. This feels like a fair price for some original retro game cartridges perhaps – after all, they have an innate collector’s value that re-released games don’t.

But I’ve bought recent AAA games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for this kind of money, which does force me to ask whether they’re really equivalent in terms of the new labour that’s gone into them. Charging modern market prices for ports of decades-old games feels like it's becoming a bit of a trend these days, and it's not one I'm totally comfortable with.

Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition review: design

I’ve gotta hand it to Atari: it knows how to pull all of the little levers and buttons in my soul to get my nostalgia flowing. The look of the Atari 2600+ is delightfully retro – it's redolent of those 6am Saturday mornings where my brothers and I would sneak downstairs early to play luridly colored, blocky pixel worlds like Pitfall! and Frogger.

The Atari 2600+ maintains so many of the details that made the original iconic. Toggles still run along its top edge, triggering everything from power and reset functions to switching between color and black & white and setting player difficulty on either side. Atari has resisted the temptation to tidy up – even little details like the way the cartridge awkwardly juts out have been kept exactly as you remember them, which is definitely to Atari’s credit.

But, naturally, given this is a Pac-Man special edition, not quite everything is as you remember it. First off, there’s that bright yellow colorway, which is 100% on-brand for anything involving the pill-necking ghost chomper. Additionally, the 2600’s usual front wood veneer has been replaced with a light-up panel showing Pac-Man in flight from the game’s spectral antagonists – I love these little details, and they show a real thoughtfulness to Atari’s design process here.

Rather than the CX40 joystick that was packaged up with the standard Atari 2600+, the CX40+ included here comes with a few upgrades. Most materially, the wired connection we criticized in our original review because of its awkward connection to the back of the console has been exorcized here, replaced with much superior wireless dongle connectivity.

Aesthetically, it has also had a glow-up, adorned with the same banana yellow colorway and a cute Pac-Man symbol on top of the stick. My only grumble here is that Atari didn’t send me any of the Ghost Edition CX40+ optional accessories they sell, which are similarly branded with the colors and likeness of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde and are objectively adorable. Come on, guys: it’s like you’re actively trying to trigger my FOMO.

Sadly, one thing hasn’t changed about the CX40+, though: it’s still as uncomfortably stiff to use as when we reviewed the standard 2600+. Trying to be as charitable as possible to Atari – and looking back on my vague childhood memories through the increasingly frosted windows of middle age – I do actually think this is an accurate recreation of how the original joysticks used to handle. I suspect, though, that this faithfulness won’t make its turgid handling more forgiving in the eyes of modern gamers.

Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition review: performance

Firing up Pac-Man 7800 triggered almost primal memories in me. Playing the game takes me right back to my childhood, feeding coin after coin into an arcade slot to spend a little longer running round its dark mazes and gobbling up pixelated fruit. It’s a heady nostalgic hit.

However, I will admit that this joy is slightly undermined by how much duller my reflexes are some 35 years hence. Coupled with the stiffness of the CX40+’s stick, I found myself dying with an almost lemming-like alacrity. I’ve improved somewhat over my time testing it, partly as a result of learning to anticipate upcoming turns and move the stick way before I hit the bend, but I’m still bad at it. Honestly, Pac-Man and I have a slightly toxic relationship: I love it, and it clearly hates me.

Even when you take away the nostalgia, though, the gameplay is still as addictive and frustrating to a newcomer. My partner is hardly a committed gamer, but she quickly found herself hooked by the addictive ‘just one more turn’ gameplay loop. There were points she’d be enraged at how pointlessly she’d died – and then she’d fire it up again regardless, which is about as firm an endorsement as she can offer.

Unfortunately, while this is nominally a twin-game pack, I can’t really say the same for Pac-Man 2600. Within seconds of booting it up, I could see why it’s always been such a controversial port. In almost every regard, it sits in the original Pac-Man’s shadow

To adapt the arcade hit to the more modest hardware of the Atari 2600, the graphics were devolved considerably. Power pills are now squares, and Pac-Man looks like he’s lost all enthusiasm for his work. Worse, the ghosts flicker and regularly overlap, making it hard to know when some of them might decide to peel off, while I could honestly never tell when a power pill had worn off, as their appearance was almost indistinguishable either way.

Fundamentally, Pac-Man 2600 might be a nice game to have in your collection. But it’s more of a curiosity, fun to revisit in the same way that archive footage of the Nintendo Virtual Boy or Sinclair C5 is amusing. I recommend you play it, even if I think 95% of the time you’ll go straight to the more loyal port of Pac-Man 7800.

Fortunately, you’re not limited to playing either – as the console is fully backward compatible, you can play any old Atari games you still have or start building your own retro collection from scratch. This is the real strength of the Atari 2600+ for me: so many retro gaming devices force you to make do with a limited catalogue or skirt into ethically murky territory. The Atari 2600+ makes it far easier to start getting into retro gaming, without having to fuss about buying 30-year-old CRTs from eBay.

Should I buy the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition?

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How I tested the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition

I tested the Atari 2600+ over the course of several days, both hooking it up to my 65-inch TCL C8K and a 24-inch LG TQ520S-P monitor.

I played both Pac-Man 7800 and Pac-Man 2600, trying out as many of the different game settings as possible, including different difficulty levels and speed modes.

• First reviewed: December 2025
• Read more about how we test