Custom Search

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Then and Now: Pac-Man

By Nico Sullivan


Pac-Man was created by Toru Itwani and licensed by Namco. The game took its origin from an old Japanese folk tale. The object of the game was simply to maneuver through a maze, while gobbling the dots and staying away from the ghosts. Pac-Man was an incredible success spawning a cult in its wake.

It was bought for production in the US by Midway.

Pac-Man was a great breather for players fed up with extreme dose of space invaders. The game soon went on to strip 'Asteroids' as the greatest selling game ever.

Pac-man was a relatively straightforward idea. The player maneuvers the protagonist through a maze eating dots. The game proceeds to the next stage after all of the dots have been eaten. There are four ghosts which roam around the maze trying to catch Pac-man who is the character controlled by the player. If the ghosts touched Pac-man, a life is lost.

The game ends when there are no lives left.

At the corners in the maze there are four power ups. These power ups give Pac-Man a short-lived ability eat up the ghosts. When a ghost is eaten, it goes back to the ghost pen where it's revived. The regrowth time for those ghosts shortens as the game progresses to the next stage. Regardless of the seemingly random movement of the ghosts, their nature is strictly predictable. This allows the experienced players to develop a precise course of through the maze and complete the levels without having to be caught whatsoever.

The simplicity of the game and the adrenaline rush it created, when a ghost came near transformed this game into an addiction. Unofficially, it is the most played game of all time.

Today, the all-time classic has been upgraded with high definition graphics. It's available in various formats from Windows on a PC to various game systems including Xbox, Nintendo, Wii and PlayStation. The game still retains the original game play and the charming retro look.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment

Under Construction

Web Pages Under Construction..
Thanks for Visiting

Blog Archive

Supreme Destiny

Supreme Destiny

Cabal

Cabal

02 Jam

02 Jam

Ran Online

Ran Online

Grand Chase

Grand Chase

Need for SPEED Undercover