"THIS IS JOEY, PAUL, WILLIE, & FRANKIE!"-OH SHIT!: The Pac Man clone for the MSX with a silly profane name

In 1985, 

A game was released for the MSX series of Computers in Europe by a little known company called AACKOSOFT.

That game is called...

I'm not even making this up!

That's the name!

So what's the premise of this game?

Well, if you look more closely, 

It's really just a Pac-Man clone.

And a rather blatant one at that.

The only thing that sets this game apart from the main game that it's copying, as well as the other clones that tried their best to differentiate from the main one....

is.....

That OH SHIT! takes advantage of PCM VOICE SAMPLES on the MSX's AY3 sound chip.

And it's noticeable when you start the game after it's tape loading sequence.

"THIS IS... JOEY, PAUL, WILLY & FRANKIE!"

And when you get caught by the ghosts, the Pac-Dude reacts to his predicament.

Hence the game's namesake.

So.... why is this such a blatantly obvious Pac-Man clone with no differences and just PCM voice samples to boot?

Well apparently, AACKOSOFT made this game in response to NAMCO refusing to port their own MSX port of PACMAN to other MSX computers overseas.

So the blatant copying of the game, it's gameplay, graphics etc. 

As well as having a PROFANE title could be seen as a TAKE-THAT against NAMCO for their early refusal to localize.

Quite the story.

In the later years, the game would be rereleased.

The first was in the UK where it was renamed to....

Probably because the BRITISH over there did not appreciate the term OH SHIT being used as the title due to the profanity.

And they even changed the SOUND BITE for the PAC-DUDE just to reflect that.

And compared to the original cassette for OH SHIT! which had the loading instructions look more HANDWRITTEN like it was written from a ballpoint pen,

The instructions on OH NO!'s Cassette had a more professionally printed label right down to the model number, Copyright info, and the font used on the label.

Later on, the game would be rereleased once again but this time as SHIT.

Just without the OH in the title.

And this time however, there's no PAC-DUDE but rather a set of demonic fangs pushing against a red piece of fabric.

Apparently, Eurosoft just reused the cover art from the 1985 Gary Brandner novel 

THE HOWLING III: ECHOS.

Late author GARY BRANDNER must have not appreciated that his novel's cover has been used for a video game without his permission.

This game was never localized in the USA(or CANADA for that matter).

My guess is that even if it was ported to the C64, APPLE II, ATARI 8-BIT, or even PCs, the game still would be banned from release in the USA, not because of the profanity used in the title which could have angered the BIBLE-BELT region of the U.S but also because it would invite a Lawsuit for NAMCO in the USA at the time(Midway lost the license to PACMAN in 1983.)

Fortunately, you can emulate the MSX games on your computer of choice and I would highly recommend playing this game.