Namco's Pac-Man

Namco's Pac-Man was designed by a younger designer that worked for the company named Toru Iwatani, and released in Japan in 1980. Originally, the game was Named Puck-Man for the character is in the shape of a puck (even though the rumor is that the character spawned from a pizza with a slice missing), but you can guess why the changed the name. Now, everyone should know of Pac-Man or some connection to the game. He is the first recognizable video game mascot to be created. The Pac-Man character has been licened to over 250 companies for over 400 products! The game was even used in "Scott Pilgrim Vs the World". Talk about "wakka wakka" popularity.

Here is a scene from Futurama were Pac-Man has been referenced to say the least.

The objective of the game is consume all the power pellets with out being touched by one of the four enemies. You do this by controlling Pac-Man through a maze, and consuming all the power pellets while avoiding your enemies Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clide. After you consume all of the power pellets, you go on to the next stage. If you get touched by an enemy though, you lose a life. After you lose all your lives it's game over. The game is considered one of the first stealth games, like Metal Gear Solid or Halo: ODST. Like those games though, you can still get back at you enemies by eating one of the 4 larger power pellets located in one of the 4 corners of the maze. After you consume this, you can then consume your enemies for points.

You score in the game by consuming power pellets, "fruit", or as previously stated your enemies. Originally, you would score an extra life after 10,000 points. Also, you can score a perfect game. This is when you complete the first 256 levels with the a maximum score possible, and with out losing a life (if you can do this, I say you lost a life a long time ago...).

The Pac-Man original arcade game in the 80's was very pattern driven.  Once players could get the patterns down, the game became a lot easier. Though if you can memorize the patterns of 4 ghosts for 256 levels... more power to ya. The  games that are re-developed today have a lot more memory and are of a higher technology, allowing for randomized patterns. The eat and evade game play works very well though. Trying to avoid your enemies and predict their moves while dinning on an all you can eat buffet of power pellets and fruit make for some good suspense. This helps pull gamers in wanting to play more to see who can make it the farthest. This causes competition which equals a good revenue. In the 1990's the game raked in 2.5 billion dollars worth of quarters alone!

Another piece of the game that works very well is its appearance. The game is just as appealing to play as it is to look at. The music, flashing colors, and classic "wakka wakka" sounds, pleases both the eyes and ears while you munch on power pellets as your enemies eat your pixelated dust.

I like the hidden challenge in the game, But the repetitiveness just pushes me away. I mean come on, 255 levels of maze and 4 ghosts...my attention span just cant handle that. The falshing colors make me go "oohhh ahhh" but then after the first couple levels, its more like "zzzzzzz...". Though for some odd reason, I tend to find myself going back and playing the game, even though I know it will bore me. Its this addiction the game causes that makes me glad there are emulators today.

The game is probably one of the best known games of all time, and still considered a fun game to play even today. Its maze and evading challenge, music, colors and classic sounds makes this game just as addicting as it is popular. So go pick up a video game classic, and have some fun today.

References:
http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/File:Pacman.jpg
http://www.classicgaming.cc/classics/pacman/history.php
http://www.mameworld.info/net/pacman/history/p1_01.htm
http://www.webpacman.com/history.htm
http://lampshark.wordpress.com/
http://pacman.com/en/pac-man-history