#MS PAC MAN ANNIVERSARY MOVIE#
#MS PAC MAN ANNIVERSARY PROFESSIONAL#
#MS PAC MAN ANNIVERSARY SERIES#

In corporate parlance, “the Pac-Man defence” is a strategy in which a company targeted for a hostile takeover attempts to turn the tables and purchase the acquirer.ģ0. In his book Trigger Happy, writer Steven Poole suggested Pac-Man was a precursor to survivor horror games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill due to its confined, maze-like map, supernatural enemies and emphasis on evasion.Ģ9. The intro sequence is a work of hallucinogenic brilliance.Ģ8. It features Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man, their child Pac-Baby and their cat Sour Puss as they attempt to elude the evil Mezmaron who is obsessed with power pills. In 1982, Hanna-Barbera produced a Pac-Man cartoon series. Professor Pac-Man was a quiz game depicting Pac-Man in a mortar board and glasses.

#MS PAC MAN ANNIVERSARY SERIES#

The success of Pac-Man inspired US distributor Bally Midway to create a series of mostly identical sequels: Ms Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, Jr Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man (which added a mini pinball table under the monitor) and Professor Pac-Man.Ģ6. It is impossible to score higher than that because of a bug in the game that turns the screen to gibberish on the 256th screen.Ģ5. The record was equalled by David Race in 2012.Ģ4. However, Mitchell was later accused of cheating by video game records supervisor Twin Galaxies. In 1999, Billy Mitchell became the first person to obtain a perfect Pac-Man score of 3,333,360, eating every dot, power pill, ghost and bonus on every level without losing a single life. But let’s just forget about that, shall we?Ģ3. Pac-Man was a major element in the appalling Adam Sandler comedy Pixels, with Toru Iwatani getting a cameo as an arcade repairman. The scene is effectively a how-to guide and an advert for Pac-Man rolled into one.Ģ2. In a 1982 episode of the sitcom Taxi, Louie (Danny DeVito) installs a Pac-Man cabinet in the garage and Jim (Christopher Lloyd) becomes addicted to the game.

#MS PAC MAN ANNIVERSARY MOVIE#

The movie also featured preview footage of Super Pac-Man, Namco’s official sequel to the original game.Ģ1. It was later heavily featured in the movie Joysticks, which belonged to the 1980s teen sex comedy genre popularised by Porky’s. In 1981, Japanese manufacturer Shoei released a terrible “erotic” version of Pac-Man called Streaking. The game gave us this Marcus Brigstocke joke: “If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.”ġ9. Notable examples include Jonzun Crew’s Pack Jam and Newcleus’s Jam on Revenge (The Wikki-Wikki Song).ġ8. The game’s distinctive electronic music and sound effects were also an inspiration to early hip-hop pioneers. An album of video-game-inspired songs followed. The tribute song Pac-Man Fever by artists Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia reached number nine in the US charts in March 1982. This advert for the device is quite a rush.ġ6. Japanese toy manufacturer Tomy made a famously beautiful, handheld Pac-Man game in the shape of an enormous yellow blob with an LCD display. Although it sold 7m copies, the game was so wretched it has been widely blamed for the 1983 video game crash, alongside the similarly poor title, ET.ġ5. With its simplified maze and blocky visuals, the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man is widely considered one of the worst arcade-to-home console conversions of all time.

#MS PAC MAN ANNIVERSARY PROFESSIONAL#

A strategy guide to the game, Mastering Pac-Man by professional blackjack player Ken Uston, sold more than 1m copies.ġ4. Inspired by pizza … Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man. Pac-Man became gaming’s first marketable mascot, with licensed merchandise including lunchboxes, joke books, T-shirts, board games, pyjamas and, for the romantic gamer, Valentine cards. Within a year of Pac-Man’s launch, 100,000 units had been sold and 250m games were being played every week. Martin Amis was a fan of the game and in his 1982 book Invasion of the Space Invaders claimed to have spent weeks in “a Pac-Man-fed stupor unwilling and unable to think about anything else”.ġ2. This was one of the first examples of a non-interactive video game “cutscene”.ġ1. The game features short animated sequences between levels, showing Pac-Man being chased by the ghosts. It was originally called Puck Man, but the US distributor Midway was worried that the word Puck could easily be modified by mischievous vandals into something ruder. The game was only a moderate success until its blockbusting US launch the following October.ĩ. Pac-Man manufacturer Namco installed the first machine in a movie theatre in Shibuya, Tokyo, on. It’s considered one of the first examples of a “power up” in video game history.ħ. The idea of eating a power pill to give Pac-Man super strength came partly from the cartoon Popeye and his love of spinach, and partly from the Japanese concept of kokoro (“spirit”) or life force.

Ms pac man anniversary