Is Pac-Man the pinnacle of civilization?

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Or at least video game civilization, as is claimed here?

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My thought -- oh, it's up there all right. Though Ms. Pac-Man was a more challenging game...

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bastard, let's try that link again.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wac-man more like.

― Tom, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

greatest video-game character. yes probably. hungry horace a close second ;-)

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

pac man is GRATE. he also has a diet almost as bad as the 18000 hamburger man

― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd say the lesser known "Jr. Pac Man" was the best realised take on the Pac Man concept, and the most challenging. huge maze where your screen scrolled to the corners... the dancing fruit (or in this case, bicycles and kites) would dance along, flatten pellets to make them slow, and destroy energizers upon contact. EVERYTHING was against Junior!

Pac Man was designed by a Japanese man who's initial goal for Pac Mac was to make a game "pleasing to women". Aw yeah, Pac Man's a lady killa in spirit.

― Brian MacDonald, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

gratuitous googled link to arcade history

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Considering Harry Potter was also on the list of 'Greatest Videogame Characters' I'm pretty dubious about it.

Still, Pac-Man remains one of my favourite videogames of all time. I can't figure out why, but it's ace. Even though Ms. Pac-Man is better, and Pac-Man Jnr is classy too. Pac-Land was the precursor to Super Mario as well...

Having played Sonic the Hedgehog a lot lately, though, I reckon he's the best videogame character. He's cute, cool, and pretty damn hard to boot.

― Paul Strange, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Link is way cool. he gets all growed up, he gets hella-smart things to play with (the hookshot roXoR) and all the gurls fancy him (they think he's gor-jusss, they want to kiiiiss him, etc)

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

pac-man is the apex of all human endeavor. it simultaneously makes me joyful to be alive in its presence and depressed that we shall never achieve more.

― jess, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is it just me, or was Q-Bert completely useless? I don't think I ever played a game that held my interest for more than ninety seconds or so. The little boingy bastard always leapt over the brink to his own suicidal death just a little bit too easily for my liking.

― Kim, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, but he always had such a good way of describing his fate. "$%&#@$(!"

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i loved Q-Bert too, although it was a little too easy to go over the edge. definitely a game for keyboard rather than joystick

― m jemmeson, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ha ha ha ha. I just got Tom's joke. It's a play on words.

― Ally C, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I still have my Atari 2600 hooked up. I never got into any game system after that.

― Sean, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Q * bert was ace.. if not anything the weird characters and sounds. The infamous "Q" word doesn't even begin to describe. Who can forget the sinister grunts of Ugg and Wrongway? Or the annoying color changing shits that were Slick and Sam?

― Brian MacDonald, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I preferred Dizzy, that egg dude!

― james, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ned was the first poster and the first to take the wind outta my sails. I was gonna say Ms. Pac-Man, too. Ever wonder why they didn't call it Pac-Woman, though? It would have made more sense.

― Nude Spock, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

or how about robotron 2084

― phil, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, Robotron! Actually that's a pretty good allegory for the US in Afghanistan right now. "We need to KILL EVERYTHING IN SIGHT! Oh, at the same time helping innocent people."

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

but watch out for those landmines

― phil, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Robotron's innocent civilians, however, were clever enough to allow all bullets to pass harmlessly through their bodies. Maybe this is assumption US bombing strategists are operating under?? Someone's got to phone them: "it's NOT like Robotron guys, it's like Defender!"

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Rayman? Harry Potter? What is this madness? No no no no! Where are Miner Willy, Horace (who is way better than Pacman), Guybrush Threepwood, Bub and Bob? Or the fluffy little Kiwi from New Zealand Story, awww. Or Paperboy, actually.

Oh dear. Geekiness overload. Next I'll be telling you how sweet the little "f"s in Nethack are (they may only be lower-case fs but they are way cuter than any other letter I've ever seen before), and how it breaks my heart every time a non-tame kitten corners me in a dead- end corridor and I don't have any tripe to throw it so I have to kill it to get out. *cries*

The only computer game I've been playing lately is Reinstalling Windows, which is absolutely infuriating, so many puzzles that I just can't solve, completely illogical puzzles that need redoing every five minutes for no apparent reason, and bastard sudden-death / guess-the-verb syndromes from hell. The "dial-up networking" level had me spending hours searching the web for walkthroughs and still none of them helped, I had to restart from scratch. Grrrrwr.

― Rebecca, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

guybrush threepwood!!! I always thought Lechuck the Pirate was rad though... Or Leisure Suit Larry... Or Toejam & Earl?

― phil, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I just read Rebecca's post as if Lisa Simpson were saying it.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pac-Man's cool alright, but what about Yoshi? What about MEGA MAN, for chrissakes? The boy from A Boy and His Blob??? Shit, I'm really showing my 8-bit roots here...

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Pengo" kicked pac-man's ass. It even played "popcorn" as U played it, and if the bad guys got u, THEY DID u IN W/ICE AXES!¡!¡!¡!¡

― Norman Phay, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What about Mathman on the tv show Square One? He had a little helmet, and if he couldn't solve equations, a grouchy tornado would eat him. Awesome!

There was also some Q-Bert equivalent on that show, not as good as Mathman.

― 1 1 2 3 5, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Uh, Harry Potter? Max Payne? Don't you love online polls? I'm actually surprised Rayman's on there - he's pretty obscure I thought. Let's add Samus, Link, Mega Man, and Kirby to the list, at least.

― Vinnie, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yay mega man!

― Mitch Lastnamewithextracheese, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

C-90 in walkman this morning on way to work = old thing taped in college from a million diff sources. 1st, the vaselines. then kraftwerk. then some dub. and as i'm dozing in my seat my ride takes a turn for the bizarre as i recognize that somewhere along the line i've taped "popcorn" on it! what a fucked up song, jesus!! must play pengo.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

trs-80s had a game called "ant attack" or something like that; it was a BAD pac-man ripoff and when the ants got you they said, in horrible "slave 4 u" wheezy mecha-ant voices "weeee GOTCHA!"

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Speaking of games which include the song Popcorn, Digger! Yeah! The, uh, digger is way cute.

I have never actually played Pengo proper, just Pengo clones like Eskimo Eddie, which I loved at the time, but I downloaded a snapshot of recently and, oh my, it clunks. And if it clunks this much on my Athlon how much must it have clunked on a real Speccy? Eek. Did I have infinite patience as a seven-year-old (see also: getting most of the way through so many games without being able to save and restore)? Where'd it go? I need it back.

― Rebecca, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eight years pass...

The answer -- yes, yes it is:

http://www.google.com/

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 May 2010 15:15 (fifteen years ago)

Happy Birthday, Pac-Man!

― Zeno, Friday, 21 May 2010 15:16 (fifteen years ago)

got the last pellet with the red ghost right on my back - nearly had a bit of panic attack in the office right there

― mdskltr (blueski), Friday, 21 May 2010 15:19 (fifteen years ago)

Haha, office productivity goes down worldwide today!

― I turn it up when I hear the banjo (Dan Peterson), Friday, 21 May 2010 15:20 (fifteen years ago)

the sound is annoying

― Zeno, Friday, 21 May 2010 15:22 (fifteen years ago)

I just caused a minor celebration in my office by alerting folks to the existence of this. We have a half-day today and there's just no way any work is getting done now.

― franny glass, Friday, 21 May 2010 15:36 (fifteen years ago)

urgh, great i only discover this at home time

― bracken free ditch (Ste), Friday, 21 May 2010 15:50 (fifteen years ago)

I love how you can do 2-player by clicking 'insert coin' again, only Ms Pac Man shows up and the sounds change.

― Don Homer, I have baked a special donut just-a for you (kingfish), Friday, 21 May 2010 19:31 (fifteen years ago)

What sell-outs Google are. Google could have been the beginning of the first true post-human intelligence. Now it is just sucking up to Pac-Man, that odious archetype of bourgeois individualism.

I side with the the ghost hordes against the Pac Man.

― banaka, Friday, 21 May 2010 19:35 (fifteen years ago)

The ghosts work together to accomplish a goal. The Pac Man merely munches his way mindlessly, thinking only of himself.

― banaka, Friday, 21 May 2010 19:37 (fifteen years ago)

I'm sure Ms Pac Man appreciates his munching prowess, to be fair.

― banaka, Friday, 21 May 2010 19:40 (fifteen years ago)

You said "I", big man

― LINGO FROM THE BURGER KING KIDS CLUB (latebloomer), Friday, 21 May 2010 19:43 (fifteen years ago)

No collective is perfect, sometimes glitches happen. We are no exception.

― banaka, Friday, 21 May 2010 19:44 (fifteen years ago)

http://media.threadless.com//product/751/zoom.gif

― abanana, Friday, 21 May 2010 21:03 (fifteen years ago)

You're soulless heartless spoilsports, Rescue Time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10153286.stm

― StanM, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 20:44 (fifteen years ago)

nine years pass...

https://www.bandainamcoent.com/

PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2 is available for free starting from - April 24, 2020 at 10:00am PDT to May 10, 2020 at 10:00am PDT - for the PlayStation®4, Xbox One, and PCs via STEAM®.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, 24 April 2020 19:06 (six years ago)

four months pass...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-09-11-pac-man-geo-lets-you-play-mazes-created-from-real-world-roads

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, 13 September 2020 20:01 (five years ago)

This bump reminds me how much I loved Pac-man Championship DX, especially its technoish soundtrack so I’m off to play that, thanks!

― scampo italiano (gyac), Sunday, 13 September 2020 20:06 (five years ago)

get em

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, 13 September 2020 20:13 (five years ago)

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