As I'm sure most of you know thanks to Google's awesome custom playable banner, this weekend marks Pac-Man's 30th birthday. I thought this might be a good place for us to share our collective Pac-Man stories.
And if no one wants to share, well, here's a table top Pac-Man cabinet made out of Legos, complete with a working 48-in-1 board inside.
Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 2:30 pm
by Ice Cream Jonsey
My memory is really hazy, so maybe some of the facts are wrong. But I seem to recall what I am about to say. That makes it somewhat true, yesno?
I think my first exposure to Pac-Man wasn't the arcade version. I think it was the frigging 2600 version.
I may have been tangentially aware of the arcade version. I'm almost sure I would have had to have seen it - my mom took my brother and I to the arcade all the time. But I remember one of the neighbors bringing the 2600 version over one weekend.
I don't believe I was thinking, "this sucks" or whatever. I don't think I had a pronounced ability to hate in my system at that point. I remember playing it a few times and such thinking, "ehh." I loved games like Adventure, Yar's Revenge and Video Pinball for the 2600, so I was certainly capable of getting past the dodgy graphics. Anyway, we eventually had the cartridge at home, so I guess someone eventually bought it.
Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 4:57 pm
by Flack
You know, I'm kind of the same way. My earliest memories of Pac-Man weren't from the arcades, but from the computer. In the early 80s we had the TRS-80 and the Apple II, both of which had multiple Pac-Clones. Then we got the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man, and I just don't remember it being as bad as people say it was. I mean, I can look at it now and, gosh, it looks terrible when compared to the arcade version, but as a kid it seemed okay to me -- especially since there wasn't a Pac-Man machine within walking distance to my house ... so yeah, the Atari version was better than not playing it at all!
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Apple II Version
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Commodore 64 Version
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Atari 2600 Version
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You can do it. You can do the Pac-Man.
Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 6:32 pm
by AArdvark
Reminding my self to relate here the story of the French foreign exchange student and the other story of the pilfered change from my brother. They both relate to pac-man.
Right now I have to organize my NYC pix and find an hour to do a proper post about it.
