Pac-Man
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XBLA gets play in USA Today
Xbox Live Arcade gets some mainstream media love on the front page of Tuesday's USA Today Life section in an article about the rush to cash in on retro games. There's a nice plug for Pac-Man and a quote sure to make Greg Canessa proud:Mardi Goldman, 56, of West Los Angeles purchased the Xbox and then the Xbox 360 primarily for her son Chiam, 15. When he introduced her to the Xbox Live Arcade, she got hooked on UNO, playing with a group of "gamer chicks." "I am able to interact with people all over the world," she says. "I've raved about this to my friends, and a few of them have gone out and got an Xbox 360, just for the arcade games." Sure the marketing team didn't write that? A companion piece compares XBLA favorably to GameTap and Pogo.
Sunday at X360F: arcade madness results
The results from last Sunday's poll are in and it was a major upset to say the least. In a come-from-behind victory that nobody was expecting even in their wildest of wild dreams, Street Fighter II -- the plucky underdog that nobody believed in -- has come out on top with an astonishing 32% of the poll totalling 763 votes. Now, with the sarcastic statement of the obvious out of the way, let's look at the results. It seems SFII has a monopoly on gamer nostalgia, as the other retro classics, Galaga, Pac-Man, and Frogger gather a paltry 11% of the vote with 242 votes combined. It should be noted that Galaga seems to be the favored retro hit outside of SFII, though. By far the most interesing aspect of this poll is the performance of Lumines Live, Small Arms, and Texas Hold 'em, with a combined 47% of the vote. This is evidence that the real strength of Live Arcade is its ability to bring us original content (just as Cloning Clyde project lead, John Nielson told us earlier this week). No doubt had titles like Castle Crashers and RoboBlitz been on the poll, they would have shown a strong performance as well. So, to wrap up, Capcom is the king of selling us our youth, and people want to see more games that you can't get anywhere else. Here's to the 360 for making Wednesdays a little brighter. Cheers.
Yeah, but how is he at Donkey Kong?
Monkey see, monkey do (Ms.) Pac-Man, posted in honor of the yellow chompers debut on Xbox Live Arcade August 9.
Sunday at X360F Poll: Arcade Madness [update 1]
No matter where you look, the big news this week was definitely Xbox Live Arcade. Every Wednesday for the next month we'll have a new Xbox Live Arcade game to download. So, of course, the big question now is which company will make the most money which game will be the most popular? Below is a list of some of the upcoming games. Which one are you anticipating the most? If you choose other, please, let us know your choice in the comments -- even if it hasn't been announced, tell us what games you want to see on Live Arcade. Will SFII hadoken the competition? Will Pac-Man wakka wakka his way to the top? Vote for your favorite and tell us why. We'll discuss the results next week. Which XBLA game do you want most? Frogger Cloning Clyde Galaga Street Fighter II Pac-Man Texas Hold 'em Small Arms Lumines Live Other More micropayments? No, thanks. Free polls from Pollhost.com Basic poll stuff: You could spam the poll, thus destroying its democratic brilliance, but that would make you a total jerkball. Don't be a jerkball. It's bad for democracy. Update 1: Oops, Lumines Live has now been added to the poll. The votes have also been reset. My apologies for any emotional distress this may have caused. You should be able to vote again no problem.
2006, the Summer of Arcade Love
The video above shows off some of the arcade titles coming out within the next month. Cloning Clyde in particular looks like a lot of fun. Frankly, I'm a little puzzled as to why Namco insists on releasing Pac-Man when Ms. Pac-Man is clearly superior. And how the hell does E. Honda beat Ryu anyway? After the break is another video. This one is Greg Canessa, Group Manager for Xbox Live Arcade, being interviewed by 1UP's Luke Smith -- wearing his best Peter Jackson costume by the look of it. The interview reveals a few nice tidbits, the biggest of which is that there are around thirty new arcade titles to be released by the end of the year. When asked if Bungie is working on any Arcade titles, Canessa gives a titillating "Stay tuned." Check out the interview after the break.
Street Fighter 2: Mega Ultra $10 edition
I know everyone is excited that Frogger is coming to XBLA today, but let's get this boring Street Fighter II news out of the way first. Street Fighter II -- the one Live Arcade game that nobody is anticipating at all -- will be sold for 800 MS Points, or 10 American dollars. Okay, there. I'm sorry. Here's the real news: Frogger will be sold for a paltry 400 points ($5). Heck, just take a look at the whole list: July 12 - Frogger, 400 points ($5) July 19 - Cloning Clyde, 800 points ($10) July 26 - Galaga, 400 points ($5) August 2 - Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting, 800 points ($10) August 9 - Pac-Man, 400 points ($5) That's 5 games for $35! Also, the Live Arcade team indicated that Wednesday will become the defacto release day for most Arcade titles. As Joystiq points out, this list may indicate that older games will see a lower price point than their newer cousins with fancy features like "blast processing" and "more than one button." [Via Joystiq]
Chimpanzee plays Ms. Pac-Man, gets eaten by ghost
There are a plethora of reasons for teaching a banana-munching mammal how to play a classic game such as Ms. Pac-Man. A plethora. The prime one, of course, being that it's an excellent and completely unpredictable strategy in obtaining complete world domination. The world's defences would have little choice but to collapse in the face of an army of chimpanzees highly skilled at traversing mazes, collecting various fruits and evading ghosts. Evil dictators and mad scientists would be well advised to watch the YouTube clip (embedded after the break) and see exactly how it's done.Another reason could be to provide commentary on the game's depth (even a chimp can play it!), the chimp's intelligence (he pwn3d my high score!) or the sheer irritation caused by a backseat gamer fingering your screen and telling you which pellet to go after. Whatever the reason, we're glad someone did it. Next week: Hedgehog plays Sonic the Hedgehog, researcher loses eye.[Thanks Franco!]
Cricket-controlled Pac-Man
It looks like hamsters aren't the only critters that have found themselves as unwitting accomplices is some mad game designer's grand scheme to find a less artificial intelligence. Recently, grad student Wim van Eck turned to crickets to add a bit more unpredictability to a game of Pac-Man, casting them in the role of the lowly ghosts against a human-controlled Pac. There's few details about how the system actually works, but it seems that the crickets actually proved to be more worthy adversaries than your typical AI-controlled enemy: at one point, a particularly clever "ghost" decided to shed its skin, probably knowing full well that it would become invisible to the game's color-based detection system. Not bad, now how about a centipede-controlled version of Centipede, Wim? [Via Pasta & Vinegar]
Pac-Man: The Movie, not coming to any theaters near you
In my opinion, the concept behind this home-made trailer for a fictional Pac-Man movie surpasses that of any other full length movie based on a game. Not that it's got much competition. Choice quote: "It looked like some kind of man, some kind of... Pac-man."[Thanks, Justin]
80s instructional LP for conquering games
The antecedent to all those tips and tricks magazines can be found in this obscure LP from the 80s: Conquer the Video Craze: How to Beat the Hottest Games. In it, "Atari Champion finalist" Curtis Hoard reads off -- in a stultifyingly slow monotone -- the techniques he's used to earn him that honorific. Sluggo at Dinosaur Gardens has not only found this retro artifact, but he's converted it into MP3 for our enjoyment edification. Learn strategies for: Centipede, Defender, Stargate, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Tempest. Wait, Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man? [Via Boing Boing]
Screenshots of Pac-Man and Galaga on XBLA
Namco announced the Xbox Live Arcade versions of Pac-Man and Galaga at Microsoft's Japanese press conference last week. This, of course, spawned the obvious question, "What's it gonna look like?" We're happy to report that high-def Pac-Man and Galaga look like ... well, Pac-Man and Galaga with artwork on the borders. Sure, it's not thrilling, but at least it doesn't look like this. Galaga screenshot after the break.
Pac-Man, Gundam, and more at Xbox 360 press conference
In addition to the news that anime is on the XBLM, there is plenty more from last night's Japanese press event. You can read the horrible machine translation of Famitsu's coverage here, or read on for the big Arcade legends Pac-Man and Galaga are coming to the Xbox Live Arcade! No word on whether there's any bad blood between the two considering Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga have been spending an awful lot of time together. Both titles will support worldwide rankings. Bandai Namco also announced Zegapain, "an anime/game collaboration that will boast downloadable content," as well as a new entry in the Culdcept series, Culdcept Saga. Xboxyde has screens of Zegapain XOR. An as-yet-unnamed Xbox Live compatible Gundam FPS. GameBrink has five high-res screens, and Xboxyde is hosting a torrent of video from the press conference. Tri-Ace studios, creators of the Star Ocean series, Radiata Stories, and Valkyrie Profile games, are working on an as-yet-unnamed RPG exclusively for the Xbox 360, to be published by Microsoft Game Studios. Sounds like the mystery Xbox 360-exclusive RPG has been revealed ... sort of. Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's Mistwalker studios is bringing several games to the Xbox 360. They announced that the first of these, Blue Dragon, will be released (in Japan presumably) before the end of the year, while a demo disc for Lost Odyssey will be released "later this year." No word on Cry On. Xboxyde has screenshots and video footage of the Square Enix/Gamearts collaboration, Project Sylph. A sequel to Gamearts' PS2 shmup Silpheed? Microsoft is cognizant that the Xbox 360 hasn't been going over so well in Japan. Last night's press conference, and their intentions to hold a second console launch in June, are indicative of their determination to succeed in Japan; an opening salvo, if you will, of the oncoming console wars looming on Japan's ultra-competitive gaming landscape. Read - Translated Famitsu coverage with imagesRead - Microsoft Briefs Media in Japan (1UP)Read - GameBrink's posts on the press conference
Pack-Man: five joysticks as one
A modified version of Pac-Man that lets five people take control over the pill eating phasmophobic, Pack-Man is another example (for more: 1, 2) of a single-player game modded to let more than one person play. Using five custom-built joysticks, the creators used "MIDI cables to communicate with a microcontroller, which then sends information on to a computer that's running the original Puck Man ROM". What this adaptation means is that Pac-Man will only change direction if the users have democratically chosen to do so. Usually the game runs at 10% of the game's normal speed to compensate for the additional time needed to co-ordinate the group, but every 8 minutes the game reverts to normal speed causing havoc and inevitable death for poor, democratic Mr. Pac-Man. Be sure to check out the MP3 recording of a group of players reacting to this unexpected speed up.[Via we make money not art]Read - Pack-ManHear - A group of playersWatch - An animation of a group's decisions
The Pac-Man Project
Bryan Los began his labor of love back in May 2000 when he purchased a beat-up Pac-Man arcade cocktail machine for $1,699. Nearly six years later, and roughly $3,000 in the hole, Los has a brilliantly restored (and functional) slice of gaming history. Head over to the Scripted Lizard for the full adventure.[Via Digg]
Play Pac-Man on an iPod MAME cabinet
The next step in the iPod's journey from being just a digital audio player to a device that does literally everything is the iPod MAME project. The emulator--a very much unsupported emulator for iPod linux--allows you to play such legendary games as Pac-Man on a range of iPods. We assume that the emulator will play other MAME games (no telling how well), but since the only iPod available for us to test is a chunky 3G iPod, we can't test this theory. In the meantime, check out Scott's nano MAME cabinet pictured on the right. Scott's been working hard to fine tune the graphics for the iPod's display, as well as creating a custom MAME cabinet to play the games on.[Via Boing Boing]See also:Play Doom on your iPodiPod linux project spawns Game Boy emulatoriDoom: now (very) playable on the iPod nano
Animated LED Pac-Man bicycle wheels
Using LEDs and a "persistence of vision" technique, ladyada has created an animated Pac-Man scene on the spokes of her bicycle. Want your own? She directs us to her tutorial for SpokePOV, an "easy-to-make electronic kit toy that turns your bicycle wheel into a customized display." Using a free schematic, some open source software, and a kit that goes for about $37.50, you can make your own custom bicycle light show. Pac-Man's taken, so how about Mario and a goomba? The Prince and a katamari? I'm seriously inclined to do this even though, in Philly, my bike would get stolen faster than you can say wakka wakka wakka.[Via MAKE: Blog][UPDATE: Corrected the gender of ladyada to reflect that that means Lady Ada. Thanks, breath.]
Pac Mac/Ms. Pac Man on your iPod
Forget Breakout. Those industrious folks at the iPodLinux Project have gotten Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man to run on their 5G iPods, as well as their nanos. It's actually an iPod port of the MAME project, and it just looks fantastic. I may have to install Linux on my 'Pod just so I can check this out.[Via Joystiq]
Pac-Man & the Ms. now chompin' on iPods
Thanks to the iPodMame project (a subdivision of iPodLinux), iPod video and iPod nano owners can now enjoy Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man on their portable audio players. w00t![Via Engadget]
The house that Pac-Man built
Joystiq reader Pick sent us this phonecam shot of a house being built, featuring two very familiar faces.[Thanks, Pick]
Killer Pac-Man shirt, from Raph Koster's Theory of Fun
Raph Koster has some merch available featuring some of the cartoons from his book, A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Our favorite: the killer Pac-Man shirt, which comes from this cartoon captioned, "People get scared of the influence games have over them -- fears that they will cause murderous rampages on the street. That's unlikely."Does that Pac-Man remind anyone of this creepy dude?[Via Wonderland]
