Sorry but what with the high quality of action games out there for the blind
now, why was Packman so popular.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Vlasak" <p...@pcsgames.net>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Happy Birthday Pacman
Pac-Man still munching foes and winning fans
Wocka wocka! The seminal video game turns 30 this month.
For a video game, Pac-Man is getting downright old. The ghost-wary hero
with an insatiable appetite for dots turns 25 this month.
From the early 1980s "Pac-Mania" to today's endless sequels and rip-offs,
the original master of maze management remains a bright-yellow circle on
the cultural
radar. But there was more to Pac-Man's broad appeal than dodging on-screen
archrivals Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde.
"This was the first time a player took on a persona in the game. Instead
of controlling inanimate objects like tanks, paddles and missile bases,
players
now controlled a 'living' creature," says Leonard Herman, author of
"Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of Videogames." "It was something that people
could identify,
like a hero."
It all began in Japan, when Toru Iwatani, a young designer at Namco,
caught inspiration from a pizza that was missing a slice. It debuted in
the U.S. in
1980.
Its success spawned a romantic interest (Ms. Pac-Man), a child (Junior
Pac-Man), a cartoon show and hundreds of licensed products. It even
reached the pop-music
charts in '82 with "Pac-Man Fever" by Buckner & Garcia.
Billy Mitchell, the first and only person known to play a perfect game of
Pac-Man (he racked up a score of 3,333,360 after clearing all 256 levels
in more
than six hours in 1999, according to video-game record-keepers Twin
Galaxies) says Pac's popularity was in its nonviolent simplicity.
"The fact that it's cute ... It's not an appeal based on violence," said
Mitchell, 39, of Hollywood, Fla. "Whether it was an 80-year-old lady or a
kid,
everyone could adapt to the Pac-Man world."
Billions of quarters later, Pac-Man's influence continues.
As part of a final project for a class in New York University's
Interactive Telecommunications graduate program last year, students with
cellphones and
Wi-Fi Internet connections mimicked the game, tracking their movements on
a grid spanning several city blocks.
They called this analog re-enactment, where four people dressed as ghosts
searched for Pac-Man on the streets around New York's Washington Square
Park,
"Pac-Manhattan."
"We never had anyone clear the entire board," said Frank Lantz, a game
designer who taught the course.
Namco sold 293,822 of the arcade machines between 1980 and '87. It shows
no signs of giving up on the franchise.
"People say, 'Who buys Pac-Man?' It's one of the few games where the
answer is, 'Everyone," ' said Scott Rubin, general manager of Namco
America.
Herman, the author, said Pac-Man's place in video-game history is forever
secure: "It was a milestone of video-game history."
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