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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.
You'll understand how depressed he is lately. Poor guy :/
and still one of the most addicting, followed closely by Super Mario Bros.
I am thankful that the article did not mention the atrocity that was the 2600 port, the brutal Saturday morning cartoon, or Pac-Man's bland sequel, Pac-Man Jr.
Cashing in on the craze nearly ruined the franchise then (its partially responsible for ruining Atari and top 40 radio as we know it), but it gave me endless arcade fun back in "the day".
...both interiorlly, and exteriorlly.
I agree with the poster. Pac-man was great not because it was a technological marvel. It was great because it was simple, yet addictive. There is a whole lost genre of gaming because all games today have to be 3D and most of them have to be either first- or third-person. Don't get me wrong, there is a place for these games, but there should be more simple 2D games (2D in gameplay, not specifically in implementation of graphics.) What happened to the platformer? Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog? What happened to simple arcade-style games?
You know what my favorite game is right now? It's called BreakQuest. It's a fairly simple and straightforward Archanoid clone with updated graphics and an insane physics engine. It's simple, elegant, requires very little investment to learn, requires very little investment to continue playing, has a high replay value and it's bloody addictive.
And no, I don't work there.
http://www.retro64.com/breakquest.asp
Also check out Z-Ball. It's more traditional, but still very fun.
For those who ain't hip check out http://www.classicgaming.com/o2home/db/cart.asp?ma sterid=24&cartid=24. This game and the outcome of the legal actions set precedents for software copyright law.
Some Japanese guy programmed Pac-Man to run in Excel 5.0! Here's more Pac-mans (pac-men?)http://www.flamingmayo.com/firstchurchof pacman/false_idols.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
If you have Excel 97 or later (sorry, not OpenOffice) then you can play Pacelman. It's Pac-Man written in Excel complete with sound effects!
Imagine being able to run one 25-year-old program entirely within another 20+-year-old program. That's computing with power.
For more information, click here.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20050326
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Weird. I had a similar experience as you. When I was 3 years old, my Dad beat the piss out of me for lipping off to him. I didn't eat a ghost, but I did die of brain lesions only to be resucitated later by paramedics. That's when I realized that life rips you off by shitting all over you. To that end, I have devoted my life to becoming a world class game designer, in the hopes that I can create world peace by bringing people together with rap music and tekken-like third person action mmorpgs.
"But theres things mightier than a sword, and there are things mightier than pens. Guns and rap." - CrazyJim1
And to think, his original name was PuckMan.
yep, and they changed it because it was such a obvious target for kiddies who would have scratch part of the 'P'.
*wink* *wink*
And for those who don't know who Billy Mitchell is......... Billy Mitchell, 33, of Fort Lauderdale scored a perfect 3,333,360 points on a PacMan machine in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. The perfect score is achieved by playing for six hours, through 256 levels of PacMan, eating every dot, energizer, blue ghost, and piece of fruit on every single level, without dying once. After the 256th level, the game freezes.
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
Just to clarify... that machine is in a place called Funspot, which is in Weir's Beach (called "the wee-ahs" by the locals). Funspot should be a landmark for every geek, since they're famous as being one of the largest arcades in the country, even to this day. The coolest thing... they keep EVERY game that has come out (including pinball machines), and in working condition. It's absolutely incredible. If you remember an old video game or pinball machine that you loved as a kid, chances are there's a working original version at Funspot. Definitely a road trip destination for any true geek.
I don't respond to AC's.
"And to invest each of the ghosts with a personality, and even make them chase differently, that's just genius."
Definitely. The way the different ghosts chase you are basically axioms in modern video game AI. You have a chaser, a cut-off, a predictor and a completely random type of enemy. The idea being someone cuts off your back door, another your front door, another guessing your escape route and finally one making up for standard deviation. It's really brilliant and keeps the game-play unique and challenging.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Absolutely. The article is dead wrong on this, it was popular because it *wasn't* hard. You could drop in a quarter and start playing instantly. No instructions to read, no learning which buttons to press, etc.
It was also hugely popular because it was non-violent. Women loved the game, especially with most games being shooters of some sort.
My dad used to be a translator. Namco / Midway hired him to interpret for Toru Iwatani when he visited the states, back in the early nineties. I remember my dad came back from that job, showed us his card, and told us he beat the creator at a game of Ms. Pac Man.
my brother and I immediately fell on our knees. We knew our dad was good, but that good? Then my dad said toru said he doesn't really play the games all that much
Indeed, in 1980 I was working in Italy and the hotel we stayed in had a PAC-MAN console in the bar.
You had to stand in line to get a turn. After a few weeks we found out that a good and strategic kick against it would give a free play, since then it quickly became boring.
About some other comments; yes girls liked it too, the receptionist Christina was by far the best at it. :)
Why do I remember that name after all these years?
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