In addition to a completely free version of the original Pac-Man, PAC-MAN + Tournaments introduces a Tournament mode that offers new stages every week, never-before-seen mazes available for purchase, achievements and leaderboards, and real-world prizes like Pac-Man memorabilia and gadgets. NAMCO BANDAI also has plans for GP-exclusive DLC in the future. See the trailer at http://youtu.be/MxZrPDpIFvk

 GameSpy's Top 50 Arcade Games of All-Time

Oh, sweet, sweet arcades. Back before modern consoles and the Internet rendered the arcade both technologically and socially obsolete, we spent untold hours feeding quarter upon quarter into these addictive machines. We've turned said memories into an all-time top 50 list. That's right: These are GameSpy's picks for the top 50 arcade games of all-time, carefully selected and ranked by a dozen-strong panel of GameSpy editors and writers, representing all manner of arcade aficionados.

These are the big five:

1. Ms. Pac-Man
2. Donkey Kong
3. Pac-Man
4. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior
5. Star Wars

I know Arcadegame Heroes from the 80ties like I am have seen better days but now I am back! And I started my first blog to keep you guys updated of my trips all over the world and further galaxies. I have seen many countries on this dark & damp planet and many stories must be told. So don't hesitate and check my travel blog here, hosted at pongmuseum.com:

http://q-bert.pongmuseum.com

Please sign up for my newsletter or bookmark my RSS feed to stay updated.

Yours, Q-bert

About Pac-Man Party

View the video here at www.buzzfocus.com

Namco Bandai expects to air 26 episodes of their Pac-Man TV series in 2012.

In the early 1980s, there was a Pac-Man cartoon. In 2012, Namco Bandai now says, there will be a new one. Set in Pac-Land, the original Hanna-Barbera cartoon was more of a Pac-Man sitcom with Pac-Man, his wife Pepper and their baby Pac-Baby. The show lasted two years, going off the air as Pac-Man fever began to wane. Namco Bandai is preparing to unleash a fresh strain of Pac-Man fever upon your television. A recent post on the publisher's Japanese Twitter account (via Kotaku) reveals that a new, 3D television series starring Pac-Man is in the works.

The company's announcement mentions a run of 26 episodes planned for a 2012 premiere. No official details were provided, but it's a safe assumption that this is the (former Marvel Studios CEO) Avi Arad-produced Pac-Man television show that Namco teased back at E3. According to Namco Bandai's Japanese website, a 26 episode 3D Pac-Man television series will be debuting in 2012. This is most likely the new animated series that Marvel exec Avi Arad is developing in which Pac-Man is a high school student who has to save the world with the help of his four ghost friends, Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde. The cartoon was made public at the E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles last month.

"We wanted to keep Pac-Man the same lovable guy he has always been, but (put him) in the 21st century," Arad said in June. "We (also) wanted to talk about real stories and … see how they can relate to our lives, being in high school and being a teenager. At the end of the day, it's the story of a reluctant hero."

Pac-Man party continues as Namco Bandai has announced a followup to 2007's excellent Pac-Man Championship Edition: simply, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. The so-called sequel will launch on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this fall, adding new mazes, modes and enhancements to the CE formula. In fact, DX sounds seriously "deluxe," expanding the original Championship Edition's six mazes to "more than 100 varied and mind-boggling" courses, according to Namco Bandai. Additionally, new modes will include Time Attack Mode, an objective-based Mission Mode and the (devour) Ghost Mode.

“For this 30th year milestone, PAC-MAN Party will continue the icon’s legacy of delivering an engaging experience while bringing people together,” said Todd Thorson, director of marketing and public relations at NAMCO BANDAI Games America. “With a combination of over the top mini-games and a stylish take on the traditional board game, PAC-MAN Party is sure to entertain the entire family.”

Reigning as one of the top pop cultural icons since his introduction in 1980, PAC-MAN remains a global phenomenon that has yielded hundreds of products including video games. PAC-MAN Party continues this legacy by offering a game that captures the spirit of the franchise and provides engaging entertainment that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. With more than 45 exciting mini-games, PAC-MAN Party provides a rewarding and challenging social gaming experience regardless of skill level.

From the time-based trials of rolling a giant snowball and knocking your friends off a mountain top, to adventures that require more precision and endurance, players will be fully engaged as they use the Wii Remote’s motion, pointing and button control capabilities.

Depending on a player’s mood, they can select three modes of play. Story mode gives players the opportunity to explore all the game board worlds and meet new characters. Mini-Game mode offers a quick fix for those who want the sudden rush of competition without the commitment. Party mode provides a more in-depth party experience that has up to four friends traveling across different themed boards in a race to collect the most points. To raise the stakes a bit more, players can strategically build and develop property on any given space which will increase their wealth and provide the quickest route to victory.

To help level the playing field and to encourage big comebacks, Power Cookies can be unleashed to increase a characters size or put extra force and speed behind each movement. Adding a bit of retro flavor, PAC-MAN Party will also feature a Classic mode where players can kick it like it was the 1980’s and experience the original arcade versions of PAC-MAN®, Galaga® and Dig-Dug®.

 The Tetris brand is just bringing its own 25th anniversary to a close a celebration that garnered multiple in-person events and over 1 billion media impressions in over 60 countries. The Tetris game was created by Russian-born mathematician Alexey Pajitnov on June 6, 1984. In January of this year, Blue Planet Software and licensee EA Mobile announced the Tetris game surpassed 100 million paid mobile downloads, making it the most popular mobile game of all time. Namco first released Pac-Man in the U.S. on May 22, 1980. Since then, like the Tetris game, Pac-Man has achieved a number of milestones and today both games are two of the most recognized video games in history.

 Both Tetris and Pac-Man have had an incredible impact on popular culture worldwide,? continued Rogers. Buckner & Garcias  "Pac-Man Fever" became the #9 song on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982 while the Tetris theme song has been sampled and covered by numerous groups, including MC Lars and the UKs Doctor Spin. Students have embraced the game as well. The largest Pac-Man game was played in 2004 by New York University students who created a real-life reenactment of the game in Manhattan. The record for the largest Tetris game is held by Dutch students who in 1995 used 15 floors of the Electrical Engineering Department of Delft University of Technology to play the game on the side of the building. We are delighted to share the hearts, minds and fingers of the world with such a worthy colleague", Rogers said.

1. PAC-MAN REMIX (iPhone):  $2.99 → $0.99
2. PAC-MAN Championship Edition (iPhone): $2.99 → $0.99
3. PAC-MAN (iPhone): $4.99 → $3.99 – implemented UniteSDK into the app, now allowing users to access leaderboards, chat and achievements.
4. PAC-MAN (iPad): $4.99 → $3.99
5. Ms. PAC-MAN (iPhone): $4.99 → $0.99

How does this thing work?

A SpokePOV is a 'stick' of LEDs with a magnetic (hall effect) sensor on the outer end. When a magnet passes by, the microcontroller takes note. By counting how long it takes between magnet passes, SpokePOV can tell how fast its rotating and quickly blink the LEDS to present an image. Therefore, no matter how fast you are riding, the image will show up correctly! Made by www.ladyada.net

Kits & PCBs available for purchase now!

Specification & Features

• Can be used with road, mountain or BMX wheels!
• 30 LEDs on each side (22 for BMX) x 256 radial pixels
• Runs on 2-3 AA batteries for 10 hours or more, assuming 3000mAh alkalines and 50% image coverage.
• Can run on rechargable NiMH AA's
• Comes with high-brightness red, yellow, green or blue LEDs
• Automatically shuts off after 3 minutes
• Software runs on any Mac, Windows or Linux computer with Serial, Parallal or USB port
• Design is all through-hole parts, perfect for a first time kit builder.
• With one spoke, total persistence at 15mph. Two spokes, 10mph. Three spokes, 7mph. (Assuming a mountain bike wheel). Looks cool even if not completely persistant.
• Great for safe riding at night, provides excellent side visibility.
• Playa-tested!

"Unfortunately, in the initial release [of the game], [the Pac-Man] sounds started playing automatically -- an oversight or an homage to , I guess," said Socol. "Even if Google was open in a background tab or window, or in a hidden iframe created by an add-on, the Pac Man music and sound effects would start. And that confused some people."

So many, in fact, heard the sounds that when they didn't find an explanation on Mozilla's support site, they posted enough questions on the support forum to slow the company's database server to a crawl. "The pounding we took on the forums also caused replication on our slave databases to fall behind by as much as 1.25 hours, so even when we wrote an article about the noises, it didn't show up for most people," Socal added.

"We just got DDOSed by Pac-Man," Socal said another Mozilla engineer quipped, referring to a distributed denial-of-service attack, the malicious assaults that attempt to bring down a Web site. "We had a new kind of 'virus' attack today that people were calling in about," said Mike Williams, a support manager with Clearwater, Fla.-based Sunbelt Software. "A few people, including an admin[istrator], called in thinking they had virus with the sound of a siren in the background of their Web browser."

Google has removed the Pac-Man doodle from its home page and placed it on a peripheral part of its site. Automatic game sounds have since been disabled :-) they now begin to play only after the user clicks on the "Insert Coin" button.

Via: www.computerworld.com / Gregg Keizer

Toru Iwatani to open Festival of Games 2010 in Utrecht

Industry legend Toru Iwatani will open the Festival of Games 2010 with a keynote speech. Iwatani is the creator of Pac-Man, the Pop culture phenomenon that swept across the world since 1980. The yellow pill gobbler is one of the most recognized icons in gaming, and one of its strongest brands.

Pac-Man's story is filled with highpoints. It took more than a year after release before the public began to notice the yellow partly-eaten Pizza, but after that, there was no stopping him. Pac-Man is mentioned eight times in the Guinness Book of Records. It is the highest grossing arcade game of all time. Pac-Man became a cultural phenomenon. His image decorates countless products, from t-shirts to Pac-Man shaped book cases. The pill-addicted hero stayed popular in the past three decades, and over thirty spin-off games where released.

"We are deeply honored with the presence of Toru Iwatani. His games are partly responsible for the industry we see today," says Matthijs Dierckx-Kuijper, publisher of industry magazine Control, and co-programmer of the NLGD Festival of Games.

Seth van der Meer, chairman of the Stichting Nederlandse Gamedagen, which organizes the Festival: "Iwatani-san delivering the opening keynote continues a tradition that began with Ralph Baer's speech on a previous Festival. Baer is the inventor of the game console. These industry legends show our devotion and dedication to this remarkable industry."

Toru Iwatani is still active in gaming. He is now a professor at Tokyo Polytechnic University. He will demonstrate his teaching skills in an exclusive workshop for a selected group of gamedesign students at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam.

About the Festival

The Festival of Games is a combination of several game-related events, aimed at developers, publishers and investors in the gaming industry. The conference will go alongside an international matchmaking event, an exposition, a career fair and a section where up and coming talents can show their skills. The Festival of Games takes place on June 3 and 4, at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht.

"There's very few other games with so much eating and so little violence," says Schnapp. "Even the ghosts aren't scary ghosts. They're funny ghosts. It's one of those games that never gets boring."

May 22nd will mark 30 years since Pac-Man made its debut by a company named Namco! So….HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Many of us “older” video game players grew up on Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Atari’s, Nintendo’s, and Commodore 64. Not too long ago, so it seems, we were all flipping coins in our local arcade, walking around through the machines. How gaming has changed...Pac-Man “We’ve come a long way”

On Saturday, Pac-Man will be turning 30, and to celebrate, the Japanese video game company Namco has organized a birthday party in Los Angeles and released Pac-Man Championship Editions and Pac-Man Lite for the iPhone and iPad. Namco Bandai is holding an event next month on June 15, timed with the E3 video game expo, with a surprising guest in attendance. Namco Bandai says that we'll get hands-on time with "unreleased titles on console, mobile, arcade, and more,"

Toru Iwatani, in 1979, created Pac-Man as a young Namco designer, and perhaps unknowingly began the Pac-fever, which hasn’t necessarily stopped in today’s video game world of realistic game playand high tech graphics.

“There’s very few other games with so much eating and so little violence,” said Jonathan Schnapp, 37, winner of the 2009 Uniqlo Pac-Man Challenge. “Even the ghosts aren’t scary ghosts. They’re funny ghosts. It’s one of those games that never gets boring.”

"Pac-Man is way deeper than I originally thought," says Chris Scott, who finished fifth in the last New York City Pac-Man tournament. "I used to think that you just went around collecting dots, but now I understand that each ghost behaves differently," he said. "There's a whole psychological aspect to the game that is simple and complex at the same time."

“Pac-Man is a gateway game,” said Kenji Hisatsune, president, CEO, and chief operating officer of Namco Networks America, the company responsible for the emergence of Pac-Man. “It’s simple, with well-established rules and boundaries. The game play is short and quick, but highly addictive and fun. Gamers and nongamers alike recognize Pac-Man and can pick the game up very easily.”

But Pac-Man remains a challenge. The arcade version of Pac-Man had a highest possible score of 3,333,360, which only five people have ever achieved: Billy Mitchell (July 3, 1999), Rick Fothergill (July 31, 1999), Chris Ayra (February 16, 2000), Tim Balderramos (December 4, 2004) and Donald Hayes (July 21, 2005). PC World amed it the best arcade game of all time, and Guinnes World Records lists Pac-Man as the “most successful coin-operated game” ever.

Well, Happy Birthday, Pac-Man!

Have a look to the "Pac-Man Food Picture gallery at www.food2.com

Update:

Google has now made the game permanently available at http://www.google.com/pacman.

In typical fashion, Google changed the header image of their homepage to honor the hottest topic of the day. Ok, big deal, it’s just a picture of a typical Pac-Man level with the Google logo inside. But hey, what’s that next to the Google Search button? Insert Coin? BING! Play the first ever interactive Google Doodle featuring PAC-MAN! This Google Doodle has PAC-MAN  running around the custom built Google maze.

Google frequently switches up its primary-colored logo in order to celebrate the birthdays and anniversaries of luminaries, pop culture icons, and important innovations (Sesame Street and the barcode have been among the honorees), but the Pacman Google logo is unique in that it is the first playable Google Doodle.

According to Google, the Pacman logo has a total of 256 levels. Our tip: Users can click the "Insert Coin" button to get the game going, or click it twice to kick-off a two-player game - you can play as Ms pacman - controls are w,s,a,d. Enjoy! :)

Pacman will be up on Google for a total of 48 hours - from 8AM PT on Friday through Sunday morning. The programmer behind the Pacman Doodle was reportedly the son of a game and pinball technician and used to accompany his father to arcade parlors and help him tinker with the games.

Marcin Wichary, one of the creators says:

"When I was growing up, my dad had the best job I could possibly imagine: he was an arcade game and pinball technician. For me, that meant summer trips through Poland’s coastal cities with their seasonal arcade parlors; peeking inside cabinets to learn programming and engineering secrets; and—of course—free games!

One of my favorites was PAC-MAN, whose popularity transcended the geopolitical barriers of that time. During the heyday of space shooters, Tōru Iwatani’s creation stood out as one of the first video games aimed at a broader audience, with a cute story of pizza-shaped character gobbling dots in a maze, colorful (literally!) characters, friendly design, very little violence and everlasting fun.

Today, on PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday, you can rediscover some of your 8-bit memories—or meet PAC-MAN for the first time—through our first-ever playable Google doodle. To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it’s too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the “Insert Coin” button or just wait for a few seconds.

Google doodler Ryan Germick and I made sure to include PAC-MAN’s original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts’ individual personalities, and even recreate original bugs from this 1980’s masterpiece. We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms. PAC-MAN joins the party and you can play together with someone else (PAC-MAN is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms. PAC-MAN using the WASD keys).

PAC-MAN seems like a natural fit for the Google homepage. They’re both deceptively straightforward, carefully hiding their complexity under the hood. There’s a light-hearted, human touch to both of them. And we can only hope you find using Google at least a quarter as enjoyable as eating dots and chasing ghosts. You know, without actually needing any quarters."

For Wichary, who grew up in Poland,

arcade video games were in his blood. His father was a game technician who used to take him around to arcades and let him see how the various machines worked. From those humble beginnings came a lifetime of interest in games and, now, the motivation and passion to make the Pac-Man project be as faithful as possible to the original game.

That commitment to authenticity extended, Wichary explained, to some of Pac-Man's little quirks. For example, though many people would never have experienced this, the original arcade game had a bug that resulted in anyone making it past the 255th level hitting what came to be called the "Splitt Screen", where the machine essentially crashed. Google made sure to build that experience into their game.

Similarly, after completing some levels of Pac-Man, a player would sit through brief animations, which came to be known as "coffee breaks," since it provided enough time to stretch one's fingers and, perhaps, grab a cup of coffee. That, too, has been built into the Google version.

And the team was so focused on making their version true to the original that they even included some of the smallest touches possible, things that only the most serious Pac-Man players would know about. Wichary said those include things like the fact that in the original game, the ghosts would give the slightest hint of which direction they were going to turn by moving their eyes that way. That was included in the Google version, as was a peculiarity that allowed Pac-Man to cut corners by a couple of pixels while the ghosts had to turn them at full right angles.

In addition, Wichary pointed out that the original game was "deterministic," meaning that players could memorize and develop winning patterns. Google, too, built that into its version, meaning that those who put some serious time into the game now will be able to make a lot of headway by figuring out the patterns that work best.

"Google spent a lot of man-hours making sure the simple things that make Pac-Man were included," Hisatsune said, referencing the coffee break and 255th-level bug. Germick explained that at Google, the Doodle team is always looking for ways to make the Google home page a "fun place to be," so once the team came up with the idea for the Pac-Man project, "it didn't take a lot of selling internally. Once people saw it, they were like, 'Awesome.'"

Putting together the Google version of Pac-Man took a couple of months, but Wichary said it would be hard to estimate how much time they actually put into the project because "I enjoyed it so much. It was a throwback to my childhood." Indeed, Wichary said that one of his biggest reasons for getting involved in this effort was to help bring other people back to their own childhoods.

Photo: Namco Bandai President and CEO Kenji Hisatsune, Pac-Man and the red Ghost.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pacman, Namco and the convenience store chain Sunkus tie up with a release of a Pacman shaped steamed bun. The bun itself is filled with cookie and custard cream. The custard cream is a typical Japanese dessert filling, but the inclusion of the cookie element is a new thing. The bun is about $1.25USD~(120 yen) and is available for a limited time only. Beneath the bun is a custom designed wrapper with information about Pacman’s 30th anniversary.

Tie-ups like this are not uncommon in Japan, but this product is very unique and an intelligent pairing of concepts. I can’t vouch for the flavor of the product though, even for the Japanese market, the flavor was a little exotic.

Article by Jon Yoneoka

Some have asked for - here it is: Our background picture as wallpaper for your computer. You can download it in 3 different sizes.

• 1600 x 1200 pixel
• 1280 x 1024 pixel
• 1024 x 768 pixel

The company is also planning to bring back the community element that was such a big part of the game’s early success. When Pac-Man was an arcade standard, the machines were more of a social gathering place than the office water cooler. People congregated to play or just watch others navigate the maze. And outside of the mall, it was a sure-fire conversation starter.

But as the gaming world moved into the living room (and later onto the mobile device), Pac-Man became more insular. Namco Bandai hopes to revise the social aspect by adding a global leaderboard (allowing people to once again compete for high scores) and a virtual lobby, where fans of the game can chat to coming versions of the game.

Other anniversary plans are still under wraps and will be announced at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in June.

Via: Chris Morris, Special to CNBC.com

The Museum of Computing was the first dedicated computer museum in the UK, opening in 2003. It is a non-for-profit Company limited by guarantee and is run entirely by volunteers. The museum has a collection of over 3000 objects related to the history of computing and holds regular exhibitions and events.

Visit http://museumofcomputing.org.uk/ for more informations about the event.

In a recent flyby it conducted around the Saturnine moon Mimas, the NASA Cassini spacecraft managed to obtain the most detailed, high-resolution images of the space rock ever produced. The recent photos of the surface, combined with complex temperature maps, provide the most comprehensive view to date of the peculiar natural satellite. Researchers investigating the photos were surprised to find an old “friend” on the moon, the famous video game character Pac-Man. It appears to be eating one of its famous dot, in the temperature map that Cassini produced. 

Read the copmlete story at: www.softpedia.com

We had tears in our eyes... watch this :-)

Crochered Pac-Man and Ghosts Pattern

Quoting creator Carey Huffman:

Around January this year a friend of mine hinted that he would like me to make him a Pac-Man toy. I ended up designing him not only pacman but also a full set of ghost to go with it. After showing off on Craftster and Flickr many people begged for the pattern (pdf). So here is is at long last the Crocheted Pac-Man brought to you free thanks to the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivs 2.5 License.

tweenbots.com - Robot/People art by Kacie Kinzer:

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Pac Man Museum opens! 

 Thanks to jrhunt for promoting the museum.

Paper Arcade - excellent papercraft arcade creations

At  wayoftherodent.com you find a nice collection of papercraft arcade cabins. Print out the – if you will – paper-engineered blueprints (should scale to fit any paper size* see page for more help on printing). Cut, fold, make, be proud of.

 El museo del mítico Pac Man abre sus puertas

Y lo mejor de todo que para visitarlo no se tienen que mover de su PC! Es un museo virtual, una página web dedicada al ya mítico personaje de los VideoJuegos, el Sr. Pac Man. Hace ya 29 años que este simpático amiguito de pixels fue creado, por un Japones en aquel entonces de 27 años, Toru Iwatani.

Sabe como se le ocurrio la idea? Simple... estaba muerto de hambre, entre sus largas sesiones de diseño de juegos, se pidio una pizza, agarro el primer pedazo, y ahi quedo la forma del Pac Man en, una pizza incompleta, sin un triangulo, que ya se lo habia comido. De ahi surgió un ícono cultural de los 80.


En el sitio hay de todo sobre el Pac Man, coleccionables, entrevistas al creador, artículos a la venta en E-bay, maquinitas originales, disfrazes, en fin, todo lo que se les pueda ocurrir. Para explorarlo con tiempo, el museo del Pac Man en la web.

Take a stroll through the virtual Pac-Man museum

Thanks to Shaggy for promoting the museum!

The museum is featured at nerdcore.de
We made it to the link section and hope for more ;-)

The Museum is featured at www.retromagazine.eu (German)
Thanks to Kai Lunkeit for the promotion. 

Passend zum 29. Geburtstag des gelben Pillenmampfers hat unter pacmanmuseum.com das gleichnamige Museum seine virtuellen Pforten geöffnet. Neben einer umfangreichen Historie und laufend aktualisierten News rund um das Thema Pac-Man bietet die Seite auch noch Links zu laufenden Pac-Man eBay-Auktionen sowie Bilder zu Kuriositäten wie Pac-Man-Plüschtieren, Pac-Man-Brotdosen und anderem. Ein Shop ist ebenfalls bereits geplant.

In this clip at youtube taken from The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - you meet one of the gamers, Mark Alipiger.
That´s Arcade for a living...!

Here’s a great tutorial by Jocelyn over at Snack Or Die for some homemade Pac Man sugar cookies.

As for the ghosty shape, Jocelyn used a tulip shaped cookie cutter. Good to know since a tulip would probably be easier to find than digging around through the ol’ Halloween bin.

When Toru Iwatani hungrily stared into his pizza box, he removed a slice of pizza and the idea for one of the greatest arcade games was born. At 27 years, the japanese game designer came up with the idea for Pac-Man - a game that became legend, and spawned numerous sequals and clones.