Pac-Man

Arcade 1980
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Namco

This is a good time to be writing about Pac-Man because this summer he is turning forty. Pac-Man has been a cultural icon for forty years. That’s not easy to do. There aren’t any older video game characters with that kind of staying power. He’s never really been out of the public eye either. There’s been a consistent flow of games, cartoons, and toys almost from the start. Practically every major game console has at least one Pac-Man game on it, and the original game has been ported dozens of times. You can even still find the game in arcades. It’s still there in the movie theater next to the crane machines. Pac-Man has endured when so many other great games from the early days have been mostly forgotten. It’s also a franchise where simplicity works in its favor as more complicated later editions never had quite the same impact even if they were better games. It’s an interesting phenomenon. So just how good is this game anyway?

I think it’s safe to say that Pac-Man will always be fun to play even if it’s not perfect. I know I always have fun with it even if I’m not very good. I am much better at many of the sequels, but the original has always been a bit elusive. I almost always die in the first level at least once. Of course this game isn’t so much about the levels as it is about the points, so the thing that makes it an icon is also the thing that makes some gamers turn away from it. This game is all about the ghosts and their predictable patterns. To do well you have to learn how each ghost behaves and lure them near the power pellets to get the big bonus for eating them. They can be worth 6,400 points if you eat them all which is much more than what the dots are worth. I know plenty of gamers who are turned off by the game because it requires so much memorization and repetition. To do well you have to do things the same way every time. In a lesser game it would all get old fast. Luckily Pac-Man is a strong enough game to survive its own mechanics.   

What makes the game an icon is that most people who play it probably don’t even know they are supposed to be memorizing patterns. They are more interested in the presentation. You have those great colorful ghosts and that well crafted maze. You have the classic sound effects and fruit that pops up in the middle of the screen. After this became a hit every game started to have fruit in it. That’s one of the strangest ways Pac-Man influenced gaming. For the casual gamer it could be even more exciting because they don’t know what’s coming next. It’s an icon because it appeals to both the hardcore and the casual gamers. You can memorize ghost patterns or you can  react quickly and try to survive long enough to see what the next fruit is. Both play styles are valid in my book.

So Pac-Man is obviously a great game, but it’s a little bit tricky to rank. It’s a franchise that has topped itself many times over the years. I don’t want to rank it higher just because it is famous and important. I want to judge it on its own merits. It is fun, but there is only one maze and so little within the game changes that is can get tedious after a while. Luckily I’m not good enough for that to happen, but I could certainly see that happening. I am going to put it right behind the underrated Pac-Mania. I hate putting games from the same series right next to each other, but it’s more well crafted than Mickey’s Racing Adventure so it can’t go below that one. I am also excited because now I have a top 20. That means that I can start saying games are going in to the top 10 and the bottom 10. Hey welcome to the top 10 Pac-Man!

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Exodus: Ultima III

4. Pac-Mania

5. Pac-Man

6. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

7. Metro-Cross

8. Gaplus

9. Dragon Spirit

10. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

11. Red Sea Crossing

12. Baraduke

13. Gamma-Attack

14. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

15. Galaxian

16. Evoland

17. Defunct

18. Gyruss (2600)

19. Looney Tunes Racing

20. Birthday Mania