Metropolis Reality Forums - PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit

Sponsored by: The Fans!

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
Nov 25^th, 2024, 5:32am

Upcoming Premiere Dates:
Survivor 23, Season premiere
Thursday, September 14 (8:00-9:30 PM, ET/PT) on CBS

Metropolis Reality Forums Ť PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit ť

   Metropolis Reality Forums
   Off-Topic Forums
   In the News (Moderators: lakelady, yesteach, MediaScribe, Bumper, Isle_be_back)
   PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit

Previous topic | New Topic | Next topic »

Pages: 1

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic

Author

Topic: PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit (Read 335 times)

luci
ForumsNet Member

Gender:

Posts: 12045

PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit
« on: Jun 27^th, 2005, 8:51am »

Quote

Modify

By Joe Antonio Vargas
Washington Post

Oh, the absolute thrill of being 25! The dots before you, waiting to be connected. Or gobbled.

Oh, to be Pac-Man!

This month, the bright yellow bloke - forever wary of ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde, forever stuck in that maze - is a quarter-century old. No, the P-Man is not going through a quarter-life crisis, thank you very much; in fact, he's enjoying a rebirth as one of your favorite cell-phone games.

Sometime this year, he'll be included in Guinness World Records as the No. 1 arcade game of all time; he's featured in a traveling exhibit called "Game On," at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago until September. Later this summer, Namco, which originally brought us Pac-Man, will release Pac-Mania, the 3-D sequel.

"The thing about Pac-Man is he's everywhere, although you don't realize he's everywhere," brags Scott Rubin, general manager of Namco America. Indeed, whether at a suburban Dave & Busters or a Clarendon, Va., ice cream shop or a Washington bar and grill, Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are bona-fide draws. They appeal not to any narrow demographic niche. This is everyone's game - boys and girls, men and women, ages 5 to 95.

Here's the condensed story on the P-Man:

He was born in June 1980 in Japan, then introduced to the United States. Toru Iwatani, creator of the classic arcade game Galaxian, thought of it while staring at a pizza with one missing slice. Puck Man, derived from the Japanese phrase "paku-paku," (meaning to open and close one's mouth), was the game's original title, but, of course, "Puck" was changed to "Pac" to avoid unfortunate alterations. He became an instant hit, bigger than Space Invaders, bigger than Asteroids, bigger than Galaga. He spawned Ms. Pac-Man, among others, and Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are still married, at least as far as we know.

There's no shame here, so fess up:

How many quarters, in all these years, have you spent playing Pac-Man? Did you own a Pac-Man lunchbox? Play with Pac-Man trading cards? Eat Pac-Man breakfast cereals? Did you sing along to Buckner & Garcia's "Pac-Man Fever" - "I've got Pac-Man Fever, Pac-Man Fever/ I'm going out of my mind, going out of my mind" - as you flipped through the best-selling books "Mastering Pac-Man" and "How to Win at Pac-Man" with that wocka-wocka-wocka sound drumming in your head?

Brandon McAuliffe, it's safe to say, is a Pac-Man addict. He'd go straight to a pizza parlor in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to play Pac-Man after school, and now, as the manager of the Wonderland bar and grill, he spends quite a bit of time, and quite a few quarters, sitting on a stool playing Ms. Pac-Man.

"I brought a date here once and we played a game," the 29-year-old says. "Of course, I let her win."

This game is all about waiting, waiting, waiting - you eat the dots as fast as you can, McAuliffe instructs, but you look out for the ghosts and wait until they go in another direction. Along the way, McAuliffe says, you try to eat the bonus fruits: "100 points for the cherry, 200 points for the strawberry, 500 points for the orange," and so on. You start, you eat, you sit, you wait. Then again. You start, you eat, you sit, you wait. Such is life."

By the end of Level 1, McAuliffe has scored 14,600 points, "the maximum points you can get in that level," he says, quickly adding that 252,000 - not a bad score but nowhere near the record - is his best score ever. He looks a little embarrassed, his face reddening. "What can I tell you? I'm in my late 20s, I have a degree in philosophy and I know too much about Pac-Man."

For nearly 25 years, Walter Day, editor of the 984-page tome "Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records," has been the chief scorekeeper of the video-game industry - most of all the record-setting scores on Pac-Man. The only person in the world who is known to have played a perfect game of Pac-Man (or, at least, the only person in the world who has publicized that he played a perfect game of Pac-Man) is one Billy Mitchell, a 39-year-old hot sauce manufacturer from Hollywood, Fla.

In July 1999, playing for more than six hours at the Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, N.H., Mitchell cleared all 256 levels, eating every single bonus prize and every possible ghost, and racked up 3,333,360 points.

"Not an easy feat," says Day, who is in Washington poring over papers at the Library of Congress, finishing up his research on the second installment - a 1,500-page, two-volume set - of his world records due out later this year.

When Day says, "I personally view Pac-Man as the Abraham Lincoln of the video-game age," he doesn't mean it lightly.

"Lincoln is the ultimate model of an individual lifting himself up from the most modest of beginnings to the highest level of success," Day, 56, explains. "Pac-Man was expected to be just another video game, you see, but surely he's not just another game."

Pac-Man is the patriarch, the king of archetypes, the godfather - at the tender age of 25.

IP Logged

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and
can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."

FLORIDAGIRL
ForumsNet Member

My All Time Favorite Team

Gender:

Posts: 714

Re: PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit
« Reply #1 on: Jun 27^th, 2005, 11:41am »

Quote

Modify

I remember when it first came out!!!! Boy I am getting old. Remeber when it made it to Atari?

IP Logged

shamon
ForumsNet Member

Gender:

Posts: 1105

Re: PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit
« Reply #2 on: Jun 27^th, 2005, 1:54pm »

Quote

Modify

every year, I go to my wife's family reunion at a state resort in kentucky.... they have an arcade that has galaga, ms. pacman, and poll position... all three games are still .25 cents.... they are the most popular games there.... family competitions for high score on all three games...

IP Logged

When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder. The

JP
Moderator
ForumsNet Member

Ditch IE. Use Firefox.

Gender:

Posts: 14706

Re: PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit
« Reply #3 on: Jun 27^th, 2005, 2:27pm »

Quote

Modify

I played it again and again but I don't think I'll ever be good at it. AFAIK, I never cleared the first level. Embarassed

IP Logged

FLORIDAGIRL
ForumsNet Member

My All Time Favorite Team

Gender:

Posts: 714

Re: PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit
« Reply #4 on: Jun 27^th, 2005, 2:31pm »

Quote

Modify

On Mrs Pacman I made it to brown but never any further.

IP Logged

yesteach
ForumsNet Administrator

Gender:

Posts: 10465

Re: PAC-MAN is 25, Remains Hot Pursuit
« Reply #5 on: Jun 27^th, 2005, 10:20pm »

Quote

Modify

I loved Ms. PacMan. We had a table version at a restaurant where I bartended... we'd spend the entire time between the "lunch" and "dinner" crowds at that table playing Ms. PacMan... she ate quarters better than dots..

As, the good old days.. PacMan, Space Invaders and Frogger... Cry

IP Logged

There are only 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Pages: 1

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic


Previous topic \| New Topic \| Next topic »