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Pac-Man
Pac-Man Video Game Analysis
Pac-Man. Everybody knows it; everybody has played it. It is the one of the first things that pops into your mind when you think of a classic video game. Even people like me, who don’t play video games, have played and enjoy Pac-Man. Bob Rehak mentions that the release of the game Spacewar! set up a number of elements that became the standard for video games to come: (Pg. 110)
- Player identification with an onscreen avatar
- Player control of the avatar by way of a physical interface
- That the game follow a narrative-strategic timeline of events
- Constraints that shape play such as a timer, music and scorekeeping
- Repetitiveness – the frequent breakdown and reestablishment of the avatar
Up until the introduction of Pac-Man, most video games had these elements, but with Pac-Man, for the first time ever, the player controlled an actual moving life-form. Instead of controlling the direction of a gun or other mechanical device (such as the times’ highly popular Space Invaders and Asteroids), the player was seeing a “being” that he/she could identify with (even though that being was a small yellow circle with a pizza slice missing for a mouth. In fact, Rehak mentions that Toru Iwatani, the game’s designer, apparently came up with Pac-Man’s shape after eating a slice of pizza and noticing the shape that was left).
The controls for the original version of Pac-Man are quite simple. Two buttons allow the player to select whether the game will be one-person or two-person, and a mini joystick allows for control of Pac-Man’s lateral and horizontal movement. Pac-Man’s enemies are small ghosts that will kill him if the two make contact. However, if Pac-Man does die, he can be “reborn” because each player starts the game out with three lives; Pac-Man merely disappears for a second or two and then reappears at the starting point ready to go again. As Pac-Man moves through the maze, consuming as many dots and fruits that claim bonus points, different sounds indicate different achievements or actions. Pac-Man’s consumption of a dot receives a brief general “ding” that is heard nonstop as he eats rows upon rows of dots lined behind one another. The consumption of a fruit or bonus object yields another more triumphant sound, while the death of Pac-Man induces the commonly known “losing sound.”
The original version of Pac-Man consists of 256 different levels, or screens. As you progress through the levels, they become harder and faster and a greater variety of bonus objects become available for consuming. Throughout the course of the game, there are three intermissions – animated scenes featuring Pac-Man and the ghosts – in which the player can take a quick break to rest his/her hands. A “perfect Pac-Man game” is defined as one in which the player completes all 256 levels with a maximum score of 3,333,360 points, without losing a life. The first perfect game was verified on July 3, 1999 and was achieved by Billy Mitchell, of Hollywood, FL, in six hours. Pac-Man technically has no end - the player will be introduced to new screens as long as Pac-Man does not lose all of his lives. However, due to a glitch in the game (in the original version), the right side of the 256th board is a jumbled mess of text and symbols making the level unplay-able.
Although Pac-Man is a simple video game, it is one of the earliest of successful arcade video games, contains all the elements necessary to be classified as a video game (according to Rehak), and has withstood the test of time as most of this generation’s youngsters know of the game and have played it. Pac-Man can still be found in most movie theaters - my mom always insists we get to the theater early so she can play.
schilmeran |
Latest page update: made by schilmeran
, Mar 10 2007, 5:55 PM EST
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