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.
Not so fun now, is it kids?
