Pac-Man

Okay this will show hold old I actually am. I generally hate video games and have not owned a single video game console since the original Nintendo came out. In fact, I still have that game console somewhere in my Mom's attic! It is rare that I get into a game and really enjoy playing it.

Despite this aversion for video games, and my feeling that day spent gaming is an otiose day, I love Pac-Man! Pac-Man is a cult icon. How many other video games have shirts limned with the game frame on it? It defined a generation at the video arcades when I used to play for a quarter a game when my parents were nice enough to give me that quarter. Admittedly, I didn't play that often at the arcade because a quarter could also buy me a pack of baseball cards. I usually choose the baseball cards. But Pac-Man was the one game that could sometimes make me spend some of my quarters and play a video game.

I never got into Centipede, Space Invaders, or many of the other games of that era, but Pac-Man...I loved that game. So when I heard that there is going to be a new 30-Year Anniversary edition of Pac-Man coming out, it had me considering buying a new gaming console if only to relive my childhood. I'll have to debate the merits of this, but I am really considering it.

I wonder if they can develop a version for the Nintendo WII that allows you to actually run from the four ghosts. (That way my friend Henry, who by the way is responsible for designing this website, could actually get some exercise! Alas, I digress!) Think of the possibilities! Even cricket video games haven't made me actually want to buy a gaming console this badly! (See, I got cricket into this blog!)

Just to show what a Pac-Man nerd I am, I will leave you with these statistics and interesting facts that I was able to find about Pac-Man:

• The original name for Pac-Man was Puck-Man. It was changed when the game was released in the USA.
• According to Guinness World Records, the first perfect game of Pac-Man was recorded on July 3, 1999 by infamous gamer Billy Mitchell, who was also featured in the critically-acclaimed documentary, The King of Kong. He scored a mind-numbing 3,333,360 in six hours.
• Though it theoretically doesn't end, a bug in the original game's code makes in unplayable past the 255th level, otherwise known as Pac-Man's "kill screen."
• 94 percent of American consumers recognize Pac-Man, giving him the highest brand awareness of any video game character in the country.

If you didn't know before, now you know!