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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.
eerro eerro wa wa wa
Let's not forget today's GUComics, who also noticed that Pacman turned 25 :-)
It's also *hard*, proving that challenging games are what people have always been looking for. There's also a Pac-Man, proving that games with a Pac-Man are what people have always been looking for.
Is this going to be the first of an accelerating deluge of articles as an increasing number of items from the explosive growth in early days of computing turn a quarter century?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And to think, his original name was PuckMan.
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
You'll understand how depressed he is lately. Poor guy :/
You only posted this story to make use of the pacman icon.
...than to have him as the icon for the "Classic Games" category.
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And best of all, Pac-Pix on the Nintendo DS is IMHO one of the most original and fun games I've played in a long time and is a very suitable tribute to the anniversary. It's good to see a 25 year old franchise can still innovate!
I dunno about that. Playing PacMan always made me feel like reaching for some crackers to go with the cheese.
So, was I the only one to find Ms PacMan, what with saucy bow and full red lips, sexy?
Really? Me neither.
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
Clikey...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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 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?
"It's also *hard*, proving that challenging games are what people have always been looking for."
Yes. One game out of thousands proves your point.
No.
It's where you move a really skinny Ms Pacman around and force her to eat the dots.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Pacman was my final project for my c++ class in school. And given how anal these types of classes are, I had something like:
Object
|-> MovableObject
|-> Enemy
|-> Ghost
|-> AttackingGhost
AHHH!!
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
of legal drinking age?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Sure, he might be safe to you. But to some of us, those who have lived in the pellet villages, the terrible sound of "Wakka wakka wakka" makes us run as the impending consumption of the village begins. I have been there my friends, hiding in the dark corners hoping not to be seen, watching as poor power pellets are gobbled up before my eyes.
At night, I can sometimes still hear the screams.
"They told me it was impossible. I replied with maniacal laughter." http://www.mydailyrant.com/
The true story of Pacman has been exposed.
Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music.
-- Marcus Brigstocke
I don't have a lot of karma but I'm burnin' everything tonight,
I got a callus on my finger and my shoulder's hurtin' too,
Gonna hit the F5 'cuz my balls have done turned blue,
CHORUS:
I got Slashdot fever (Slashdot fever!)
It's drivin' my crazy (drivin' me crazy!)
Slashdot fever (Slashdot fever!)
Goin' outa my mind! (goin' outa my mind...)
I've got all the servers down, plus Roblimo's priv-key,
I don't R the F'in A; it's dupe that links to Roland P.
I got Goatse in my back door and through the other side,
'Cuz FreeBSD is dead, and Stephen King just died!
(Chorus)
I'm gonna post to the left and troll to the right,
Say the Dems are too slow, and the 'pubs are outa sight,
(Guitar solo)
Now I got 'em on the run and I'm lookin' for the high score,
Wish the "Funny" counted lots, as I'm just another karma whore,
I'm really cookin' now, moddin' everything in sight,
All my points are gone, I'll metamod tomorrow night,
I got Slashdot fever (Slashdot fever!)
It's drivin' my crazy (drivin' me crazy!)
Slashdot fever (Slashdot fever!)
Goin' outa my mind! (goin' outa my mind...)
Pac-man is well settled in life.. in times of xbox and PS2, many (including me) still like to play this.. its time for him to get married now..
Good news for you: actually, there is Pac-Man for PS2 called "Pac-Man Fever" - and Ms Pac-Man is one of the key characters in the, ummm, storyline (if you could say so in Pac-Man). You can even run the game in "classic" mode, where it is just the old-school Pac-Man the way you remembered it.
UGeek
...both interiorlly, and exteriorlly.
And /.'ing will *still* manage to crash the servers, despite that being theoretically impossible with quantom computers and fusion-powered network switches ;)
Programming is an Art. I am an Artist. Does that mean I get to wear a daft hat?
And the answer is, if there really is a God, never.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I think yours is, however the first of a flood of predictions predicting a flood of articles.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
Yes. Unfortunately the holographic slashdot also includes holographic goatse links.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Oh bugger, I just have. Must - poke - out - mind's - eye
FOUR WAYS IN WHICH MY LIFE IS JUST LIKE PAC-MAN'S
by John Crownover
1. Ever-present wail of sirens
2. Relentlessly pursued by ghosts
3. Four special pills daily keep ghosts at bay
4. Occasionally eat some fruit
(from www.mcsweeneys.net)
"show me all the blueprint show me all the blueprint show me all the blueprints"
Was when I was 3 years old and my dad hoisted me up to the pac man machine. First thing I did was eat a ghost, and died. I realized then that video games like to rip you off by suprising you with dangers. I also thought that a better video game than pacman could be made by adding buttons that did something.
God spoke to me.
Um... That would be a "Breakout" clone, just as Arkanoid itself was.
Kids! Just don't know how it was in the old days...
And the brethren went away edified.
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.
If I had a quarter for everytime that I played Pac Man...
:q!
But he IS married - ever heard of Ms. Pac Man?
Circumcision is child abuse.
" 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."
What? what are you talking about? PacMan was a HUGE technological marvel back in its day! The sprites were alot more defined than any other game, it had a "neon" light effect in the maps, the sound consisted in something more than "beeps" and it was the first game with actual AI and a real map! (which changed each level) even today amateur coders have a bad time trying to pull pacman clones that actually feel and look authentic. (just look at the terrible Atari 2600 port for further reference) this was "doom 3 meets hl2" 25 years ago!
Sorry but the "gameplay versus nice graphics/features" is pointless. sure nice graphics and features dont make a game, but they do provide an excellent background for good gameplay, otherwise is like michellangelo painting with 2 crayons, or amadeus using one of those tiny electronic pianos, even if they create a masterpiece is not as good as it could be if they used the correct tools. Period.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
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
People wax on poetically about all the classic video games (Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Defender, Space Invaders, etc), but I suspect their popularity was due to their novelty rather than their appeal.
They were fun, colorful, but there's too much meaning being attached to them. It appealed to the future-nerds (myself included).
If you had the option of being trapped on a deserted island for a year with one video game (and the hardware and electricity to play it), would it be Pac Man (all safe and colorful), or Empire Earth II in all it's glory and challenge?
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.
Oh yeah!!!
I had an Odyssey 2 and it was something of a coup that KC Munchkin was so much better looking than Pac Man on the Atari 2600. It was one of the few times I was glad my parents didn't buy me the 2600 instead.
Now that I'm an adult (well, legally...) I can see how owning that console was the beginning of a long pattern of owning technically superior products that nevertheless lost in the market to lesser technology. Now, after having been the proud owner of a Betamax, a Mac, a Newton, an Amiga, LaserDisk, NetWare, propane-powered pickup, and a bunch of other gadgets, I have such low self-esteem and aversion to getting screwed by technology that I buy everything at Best Buy because those guys know what's really good.
Oh, and happy birthday, Pac Man. Hope you and the Ms. are doing well. I miss you.
You just have to go outside. But most of the NPCs are boring, stupid and annoying and there are a lot of boring cut scenes that can't be skipped through between the action sequences.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Real Video Game Heros!
Today we salute you, Mr. Moving Half-Eaten Pie. For 25 years you have been trapped in a box, forced to eat pellets all day and run from ghosts. But when you get a hold of one of those Power Pellets, you let those ghosts know who's boss
SUPERNATURAL MUNCHER~
So today, we raise an ice cold Bud to you, oh champion of the arcade, for you are, the baddest moving cheese wheel ever.
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All these posts, and not one link so that I can immediately satisfy my craving to munch dots and run away from ghosts?
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/pacman.html
"Sinistar" is still one of the best games out there. Hard as hell, action packed, and a great way to eat through quarters. heh.
:)
Actually, "Gauntlet" was the best way to eat through quarters - until you realize that the levels start to repeat themselves.
How many Pac-Man levels were there, anyway?
"Pac-Man Turns 25"
:(
But he still lost his hair a long time ago.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
When are we going to see a pac man movie?
It's too late. Marlon Brando is dead.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."