A day or two after The Empire Strikes Back, Namco rolled out Pac Man which went on to be the next big video game after Pong and Space Invaders took the world by storm. Well, it took a while really because there weren’t any machines until Spring 1981 in Springfield. The game did bring changes its predecessors didn’t have: women were finally more interested in playing thanks to Pac Man didn’t involve killing aliens and there were books published on how to go around the maze without the ghosts touching you…a flaw Namco fixed with the sequel Ms. Pac Man. I personally preferred Ms. Pac Man for it was easier to complete just the first maze. I don’t know why the better AI in Ms. Pac Man allowed this.
Anyway, Pac Man’s popularity went on to more arcade games (Super Pac Man, Pac Man Jr. readily come to mind), adaptations for consoles (the Atari 2600 version was disappointing), handhelds, clothes, other crappy merchandise, a decent pinball machine, a Saturday morning cartoon show and this annoying song you’d hear on the radio briefly…
Hard to believe Buckner & Garcia filled up a whole album with video game songs.
I think my favorite anecdote regarding the game’s development was hearing about someone at Namco whose English was strong enough to convince the bosses not to call the game by its originally proposed name…Puc Man.
Thanks Namco, your Pac Man got my parents to take my brother and me to the local arcade to play as a family on school nights!