Old School Gaming

Pacman - As classic as gaming gets

2008-06-28T06:58:00.002-04:00

At the intersection of Classic Gaming and Culture Defining moments, you find Pacman. Or Pac-man. This appealing one-screen arcade title with a rainbow assortment of ghosts, bouncing bonus fruit and the distictive "wagga-wagga-wagga" of pacman's munching, became a cultural icon in the 80s. I sucked at it.

I'm going to die within 2.4 seconds from here and the big 9th grader
is going to push me out of the way for his turn

One interesting tidbit to point out is that there were some "problems" in trying to interpret what a "pacman" was or at least what a "pacman" should look like outside of the game. For some reason, they wanted to give pacman legs. The worst pacman art has to be the original game cabinet.

Why legs? Why?

The other thing about the gaming cabinet is that it showed a blue ghost going after pacman. Pacman realizes this mistake though and that's why he's smiling. While this pac-man (pacman) art is lame. It started to get better. For instance, the Atari 2600 version of the game sported the following design.

Still has legs, but at least he's round-er

Sadly, that's the only praise I can give Atari. The advantage of the home console was to play an arcade game in the comfort of your own home. That's right! No more quarters to steal off your father's dresser! Play while lounging on your beanbag chair! Sounded great, but what you got was this ...

Bizzaro Pacman

Even at a tender young age, I realized something was askew. I, however, defended Atari saying "well, you can't expect the same thing." Well, either way it pretty annoying. The dots are now dashes, the power pellets are squares, the distinctive "wagga-wagga-wagga" was replaced with an ear bleeding "BONK-BONKBONK-BONK ... BONK" and the bouncy fruit was replaced with a "vitamin."

Can you spot the vitamin? It's subtle...

Later versions got better and people had fun finding pacman in other situations of marketing, like shirts, tv shows and board games.

Ok, maybe "fun" is a bit of stretch

With almost all games, there's a story. "What's the backstory as to why we join the hero on his mission?" Aliens are invading and it's up to you to defend them, there's a big ape who stole your girlfriend - stories that give the game substance which can later be made into really bad movies. But what about pacman? What's the story? The packaging art doesn't help. Why ghosts? Why pellets? Why a yellow pie chart? For decades we all left it alone, content with the notion that pacman just "is" and no more. However, the following illustration paints the story in a new light.

Not so fun now, is it kids?

Whatever you may think, it is undeniable that pacman has made a dent in the cultural forehead of the 80s. So enjoy the pill popper ghost buster, he's cute.

Aww, he's a cutey, he's like the sun, or an emoticon.

Abandonware and Classic Gaming

2008-06-26T14:37:00.001-04:00

Let's go ahead and start things off with "Abandonware." Abandonware is software from a company that "abandoned" the game/program. Either through the company going out of business or the silly thing was too much of a hassle to deal with, the title is set on an ice float to drift in the see of 1's and 0's.

Luckily for classic gaming aficionados, you can bring some memories back by playing some old titles.

A few sites of interest to begin your abandonware collecting:
http://www.classic-gaming.net
http://www.abandonware.net

or if you have a specific title in mind:
http://www.freeoldies.com/index.php - this is a search engine that browses through many different abandonware sites.

One thing to note:
Your super-powered, nitrogen-cooled computer will probably laugh at these programs. Like other platforms, an emulator is preferred.
Check DosBox for an emulator and relive your DOS days.

Classic Gaming

2008-06-26T14:15:00.000-04:00

If you remember when video game controllers had 4 buttons or less, you are from the Classic Era. Back when the HIGH SCORE was what was important. It was an interesting time. Arcades were plenty, quarters were sought for and you became friends with the kid that had the most cartridges.

Yes, I said “cartridges.”

Expect some reviews of classic games, observations of classic gaming trends. Meanwhile, I’m going to fire up the Colecovision and see if the controllers still work.