Original Arcade Game Pac-man

By Teddy Peterson on August 19th, 2007

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Perhaps, one of the most popular arcade games ever, Pac-man was first released in the year 1980 by a Japanese company called Namco. Its distribution rights were later given to the US Company, Midway. If you think that it was just another silly arcade game, well think again. Pac-man is one of the few games that boast of 256 levels and till now only one person has completed the game, 39 year old Billy Mitchell who played for about six hours gathering 3333360 points, a feat that is considered impossible to be repeated by game enthusiasts.

Pac-man was created by Toru Iwatani who thought of the game when he saw a pizza with a missing slice. The Pac-man culture has caught on so much that it can be found everywhere. Before Pac-man was released, arcade games were meant only for boys. Pac-man broke all the rules in this respect opening doors for female gamers as well.

The “wockawocka” sound of Pac-man gobbling his way through the different levels has become very familiar to the gamers all over the world. Pac-man was first developed as an arcade game, with a coin machine required to play the game. However, the game has found its way into gaming consoles like Xbox 360 and even in cell phones.

The game play is very simple. The gamer has to guide Pac-man through the levels feeding on dots and bonus points. At the same time, Pac-man has to be careful of the four ghosts. On eating energizers, Pac-man is able to temporarily eat the ghosts, until they regenerate after a few seconds. On attaining every 10000 points, Pac-man is awarded a bonus life. The popularity of the game has resulted in the release of many sequels. Some of the sequels include games like Ms Pac-man, Baby Pac-man, Pac-man Plus, Professor Pac-man, etc.

After twenty-six years of the release of the original game, Microsoft collaborated with Toru Iwatani to include the game in its Xbox Live Arcade edition. When you hear the names Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde, you immediately know that they are the four ghosts who are out to threaten the very existence of your favorite character, Pac-man. The game is so addictive that gamers even resort to books like ‘How to Master Pac-man’ to improve their skills. Namco, one of the game’s original developers has already released Pac-mania, which is a 3D format of the original game.

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