Namco's character Mappy has had to live in the shadow of Pac-Man. I wouldn't mind seeing the little mouse make a return in a new game as all he seems to get today are re-releases and cameos.
The first Mappy game, simply titled Mappy, was released in arcades in 1983. It was simple and addictive platformer where you had to recover stolen property from criminal cats. Western publisher Bally Midway passed on Pole Position in favor of this game. This turned out to be a bad financial decision which gave their competitor Atari a lot of cash. Pole Position was far more successful than Mappy.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...s/M/wMappy.png
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...s/M/xMappy.png
Namco ported Mappy to the MSX and Famicom in 1984 and to Game Gear in 1991.
MSX version
http://emul8.xlabs.sk/emulators/msx/mappy-1-msx.gif
Famicom version
http://www.image-dump.com/image.php?x=9157
GG version
http://www.vgmuseum.com/pics2/mappy.html
The Famicom version was recently released for Game Boy Advance as part of Nintendo's Famicom Mini series.
http://image.lik-sang.com/images//la...-mappy-jap.jpg
Dempa ported Mappy to various Sharp, NEC and Fujitsu computers.
X1 version
http://tbs701.hp.infoseek.co.jp/images/X1MAPPY_OLD2.GIF
Mappy has also shown up in late '90s compilations such as Namco Gallery Volume 1 for Game Boy, Namco Museum: Volume 2 on Playstation and Namco History Volume 1 for J-Windows 95.
Namco Gallery Volume 1 through Super Game Boy
http://www.namco.co.jp/pr/release/19...news-mappy.gif
A cell phone version was released in Japan a couple years ago.
http://tbs701.hp.infoseek.co.jp/images/mp_it.gif
Mappy's second arcade game was Hopping Mappy in 1986. This time Mappy had to pogo stick around squashing all the cats on the levels. I don't think it was released outside of Japan which is too bad since it's pretty good.
http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/...ping_Mappy.png
Mappy Land was a side-scrolling sequel released for the NES. Namco released it in Japan in 1986 and Taxan published it in North America in 1988.
http://nestalgia.blastnet.ee/screenshots/Mappy_land.gif
Mappy Kids in 1989 was another 8-bit Nintendo release although this one never left Japan. It was a mix of standard platform action and mini games. The goal was to collect money and buy various objects for your son's home so he can get married. It also had a split-screen versus mode. I haven't played much of it. It was more detailed than Mappy Land but I thought it did away with the charm of the old Mappy games.
Here are some pics. I can see why Namco didn't release it here. There's some KKK resembler wearing a Pac-Man T-shirt and other weird shit.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/chiko/mapi_kids.html
http://www.fourhman.com/mappy/images/mappy_watch.jpg
Overall it's a cool series. Fans?
