At first glance, thanks to a fancy title screen, the Atari home computer edition of Ms. Pac-Man seems to have had a little extra care in its development. In fact, this version was authored by General Computer Corporation, the same company that created arcade Ms. Pac-Man for Midway. So it may seem a little surprising that the actual game screens feel a little more plain compared to other home versions, from the no-frills scoring section to the monochrome bonus items. Fortunately that's where most of any disappointment ends. The game plays just as well as those other editions, and even sounds a whole lot better than the Apple II and Commodore 64 efforts. Atari Ms. Pac-Man also offers an extra level, the teddy bear board, where Ms. Pac-Man and the ghosts move very slowly. Starting on this level allows young children and other beginners a chance to get comfortable with the game before moving on to the usual levels. Of course skilled players can skip the teddy bears and head straight to the cherries, or even immediately go bananas.
Speaking of bananas, there is one significant drawback to this version of the game. In the original and in most other home versions, once all bonus items and all mazes have been seen, bonus items are then picked randomly, while the third and fouth mazes alternate every few levels. This Ms. Pac-Man skimps on that variety. Once the bananas and the fourth maze are reached, they are all that appear for the rest of the game. This can be a source of boredom for expert players who appreciated how the original mixed things up even at the highest difficulty.
The lack of change-ups shouldn't bother novice players, however, and the rest of this version remains just fine. GCC followed themselves home quite well.
(Note: The Atari 5200 and the Atari 8-bit computers have very similar hardware, and games were often published with the same code for both. Ms. Pac-man plays identically on both systems.)