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Pac-Man Turns 25
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed May 11, 2005 05:00 PM
from the happy-birthday! dept.
from the happy-birthday! dept.
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.
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Pac Man's Obit (Score:5, Funny)
GUComics (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GUComics (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:GUComics (Score:3, Funny)
There's also a Pac-Man (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There's also a Pac-Man (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:There's also a Pac-Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes you just want to pick up a new game and play for a while without learning new complicated things. Heres to the games you can play with a beer in one hand!
Parent
Re:There's also a Pac-Man (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
First of a Flood (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong (Score:3, Funny)
I think yours is, however the first of a flood of predictions predicting a flood of articles.
Re:First of a Flood (Score:4, Insightful)
I foresee thousands of discussions on the UltraWeb (or whatever they decide to call it) about these games, and how kids these days just don't understand good game design.
Parent
There's Alright a 3D Ultra-immersive Environment (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:First of a Flood - /. in 25 years (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
I'm not even going to mention... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh bugger, I just have. Must - poke - out - mind's - eye
Parent
Re:I'm not even going to mention... (Score:4, Funny)
You know, that's probably one of the best captions for that image going.
=)
Parent
Re:First of a Flood (Score:5, Insightful)
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'?
Parent
His real name! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:His real name! (Score:3, Interesting)
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 If you've seen Family Guy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And If you've seen Family Guy (Score:3, Interesting)
Admit it /. editors (Score:5, Funny)
Happy Birthday Pac-Man! (Score:3)
"Pizza sans one slice"? (Score:5, Funny)
So, was I the only one to find Ms PacMan, what with saucy bow and full red lips, sexy?
Really? Me neither.
Some people are WAY too much into Pac-Man (Score:3, Funny)
First Game I ever played... (Score:3, Interesting)
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".
definitely a tech-demo thrill (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:definitely a tech-demo thrill (Score:3, Interesting)
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 ch
I like the anorexic version (Score:5, Funny)
Memories... (Score:5, Funny)
Object
|-> MovableObject
|-> Enemy
|-> Ghost
|-> AttackingGhost
AHHH!!
Re:Memories... (Score:3, Insightful)
So Ms. Pac-Man would be? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So Ms. Pac-Man would be? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yeah, real safe. (Score:5, Funny)
At night, I can sometimes still hear the screams.
Re:Oh yeah, real safe. (Score:5, Funny)
You live in fear of Fozzie Bear? Are his jokes really that bad?
Parent
True Story of Pacman (Score:5, Funny)
The true story of Pacman has been exposed [vgcats.com].
Obligatory Pac Man quote (Score:4, Funny)
-- Marcus Brigstocke
I got Slashdot Fever! (Score:3, Funny)
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 Cel! (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine being able to run one 25-year-old program entirely within another 20+-year-old program. That's computing with power.
Four Ways in Which My Life Is Just Like Pac-Mans (Score:5, Funny)
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)
One of my first memories (Score:3, Insightful)
The memories (Score:4, Funny)
Billy Mitchell Would be proud (Score:5, Interesting)
To clarify (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
I Wonder About the Classics (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:next? (Score:3, Informative)
Good news for you: actually, there is Pac-Man for PS2 called "Pac-Man Fever" [gamespy.com] - 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.
Re:next? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:When's the movie coming out (Score:5, Funny)
And the answer is, if there really is a God, never.
Parent
Re:The death of gameplay (Score:3, Informative)
Um... That would be a "Breakout" clone, just as Arkanoid itself was.
Kids! Just don't know how it was in the old days...
Re:The death of gameplay (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Long Live K.C. Munchkin! (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Parent