Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze

Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze is a Microsoft Windows game published by Infogrames and developed by Creature Labs. It is the third (and currently final) game to have Ms. Pac-Man as the main character despite still appearing in some Pac-Man games. The game plays like the original Ms. Pac-Man whereas you have to control the titular character through the mazes to collect all the Pac-Dots while avoiding Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Sue. Ms. Pac can also grab a Power Pellet in order to eat the ghosts.

Plot
One day, Professor Pac is talking to Ms. Pac-Man. He tells her about the Golden Maze in Cleopactra, in the Temple of Dots. He says that only a true pacventurer can get to the maze and beat it. Ms. Pac-Man sets off to the Golden Maze to beat it, but Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Sue try to get in her way.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Poorly generic menu screen. It's just a bland-looking selection with Ms. Pac-Man and the ghosts slapped onto it. The more you look at it, the more mediocre it looks.
 * 2) The sound effects. Regardless if it was eating the dots or ghosts, it can be ear piercing to having to hear those sound effects. It gets even worse when playing on high volume or when there are a lot of dots.
 * 3) The main menu music at the beginning can be a pain to listen to. It sounds like it's been composed by some little kid who is messing around with the soundtrack before some real composer came in and took over.
 * 4) The soundtrack is very repetitive. So unacceptable for a game that came out in the early 2000s. Try comparing the lackluster 2000s soundtrack to games that were released on the same year like Halo: Combat Evolved, Devil May Cry, Super Smash Bros: Melee, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Golden Sun, ICO, Sonic Adventure 2, etc.
 * 5) *When you play the maze game, the music is so quiet sounding that the sound effects can easily distract the music.
 * 6) For Pac-Man standards, the difficulty is a joke in this game. Lots of power-ups appear fairly often which makes it less of a challenge. Another factor of this would be the AI on the ghosts who are reduced to being less threatening to come across (it's like if the ghosts didn't want to be in this game). Even if you had to play it in a hard setting, it still lacks challenge.
 * 7) Short yet terrible cutscenes. The cutscenes contain a 2D art style with the characters slapped onto them. They look low budget (to even resembling a low budget direct-to-video film like Dorbees) and the characters look out of place for those kinds of cutscenes.
 * 8) Lackluster mazes. Seriously, Pac-Man is known for interesting mazes yet the mazes here look low in quality. Every maze in the game almost looks the same but with some differences. With the mazes having poor design choices, it becomes tedious. The 3D modeling doesn't help either.
 * 9) Only 7 levels. There's not much to do in the game as it only contains that many levels. It's not even fun due to the problems with the mazes. One can say that the arcades of the original Pac-Man games are repetitive, but a game like this does not have much charm as the original arcade games.
 * 10) The game is short so it can only be completed in only around one hour. To add more problems with that, it's truly shorter if you are really good at it.
 * 11) Lazy box art. It's mainly just a yellow background with the logo and title character.
 * 12) Lackluster ending. It only contains Ms. Pac-Man appearing in a 2D setting feeling satisfied with her victory and then it's just the credits. How underwhelming.
 * 13) Overall, the game feels like nostalgia pandering due to the levels. Even Ms. Pac Man and Pac Man Championship Edition was better than this.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The graphics on the mazes are bright and decent for 2000s PC game standards. The same can never be said about the cutscenes.
 * 2) Even if the soundtrack is underwhelming, it's still calming.
 * 3) Multiplayer mode isn't too bad and it can be fun.
 * 4) A new baby green ghost is added, and when touched, gives you a power-up.

Reception
The game got mixed to negative reviews. GameSpot gave it a 3.7/10. The rest can be seen in GameFAQs.

Source

 * Varanini, Giancarlo. Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze Review, GameSpot, Nov 8th 2001

Gameplay
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Trivia

 * 1) This is the only Pac-Man game to not feature Pac-Man in some way, shape, or form.
 * 2) Many of the game's level environments are taken from Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness, such as Cleopactra and the Temple of Dots.