One of the most iconic retro titles to every grace our presence. The arcade classic featuring the pill-induced puck, this week’s Retro Recap is none other than Pac-Man.
Waka waka – the notorious sound emitting from our favourite pie chart-like character. Pac-Man, despite its quite simplistic nature, provided a great deal of entertainment and challenge. Way back then, Pac-Man purely existed as an arcade attraction, costing valuable coin to even get remotely good.
Transitioning onto the home consoles, Pac-Man became a household title, but even then, the difficulty remained. Still, nothing was more satisfying that perfecting your craft, then bragging to your friends your talents in the local arcade. Nothing demonstrated a higher honour than that of a player on the Pac-Man high score list. If you were on there, you were a very lucky player!
Some little fun facts about Pac-Man:
- The working name for Pac-Man was actually Puck-Man, but the developers decided against it, believing people would vandalise the name.
- The first perfect game of Pac-Man was finally achieved 20 years after the game was released. A perfect game consisted of completing each level by collecting all the fruit as well as eating all possible ghosts on each stage. The feat took 6 hours to accomplish.
- Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde each have their own programming attached to them. Blinky chases Pac-Man down, while Inky and Pinky aim to position themselves in from of Pac-Man. Clyde is unique in that he chases Pac-Man but also moves towards the bottom left corner when nearby.
My experiences playing Pac-Man? I have to say, it’s practically non-existent, but it does have a historical connotation. Pac-Man was the first official that got the pleasure of me rage quitting. Never since then have I felt more remorse towards a digital ghost than I did that fateful day. I just could never make it past level 5, no matter how hard I tried. That damn game.
Even to this day I try to stray away from Pac-Man even if Google made an epic doodle based around it. Still, Pac-Man deserves its prestige as one of the most popular games of all time, providing an early insight to the eventual global phenomenon that is video games. Arguably, Pac-Man is one of a few grandfathers of the video game industry.
Did you play Pac-man during your youth, or even your adulthood? Of course you did! How far did you get, or more precisely, how frustrated did you get? Let us know in the comments section below!
