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Pac-Man Turns 25
blacklily8 writes "CNN Money is running a story about Pac-Man's 25th birthday. After going on a bit about the history of our favorite pizza sans one slice, the article waxes a bit on why the game was (and is) such a success, with some quotations from Namco's marketing manager: 'He's very colorful, very safe. It's definitely different than the trends going on in games. He just has an appeal.' I think it's because the game is just plain fun, with no need to rely on tech-demo thrills to attract attention. Time to dig out the X-Arcade." It's also *hard*, proving that challenging games are what people have always been looking for.
I think it's because the game is just plain fun, with no need to rely on tech-demo thrills to attract attention.
Twenty-five years ago, Pac-man was a tech-demo thrill. Compare it to Space Invaders, the previous blockbuster game, and it's a night and day difference in graphics, sound, and presentation.
But apart from that, I think one of the things that really made pac-man was being the first truly funny game to come along. And to invest each of the ghosts with a personality, and even make them chase differently, that's just genius.
And don't get me started on having the intermission shows, the fantastic sound effects, and the fruit prize intended to lure greedy gamers to their doom. It wasn't until the mid-80s, with Zaxxon, Pole Position, and especially Marble Madness, that Pac-Man lost its luster for me.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Because on an emulator you haven't paid $0.25 to play it. There aren't people around to shoulder-surf you when you reach an insane level. Because there's no anonymous competition with the guy you trade highscores with on the same machine, week after week.
Pac-Man and other arcade classics don't hold up as emulated games because a lot of what made them fun were specific to their context. As arcades died out, and gaming moved to the PC and the console, things like 'points' and 'lives' became less important as gameplay elements, in favor of persistent games with longer-term goals like 'items' and 'unlockables' (and got a hell of a lot more complicated - Half-Life's Hazard Course was an acknowledgement of, and brilliant solution to, that phenomenon).
A typical game review today includes a note about how many hours long the game is. For an old arcade game, that's so irrelevant as to be meaningless - how 'long' is Pac-Man? Average game length? Time it takes to get to the 'key' levels for an expert player? Time it takes to learn all the patterns? Or 'as long as you wanna hang out and spend quarters'?