Pac-Man (universe): Difference between revisions

Pac-Man (universe) (edit)

Revision as of 13:14, June 12, 2014

1 byte removed , 10 years ago

m

Hmm, apparently I made a mistake that reversed my meaning there.

Erik the Appreciator

230

edits

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 After Masaya Nakamura's company, Nakamura Amusement-machine Manufacturing Company (or NAMCO), founded Namco's American subsidiary in order to license its video arcade machines to companies such as Atari and Midway Games for distribution in the U.S., Namco released its first internally designed video arcade game in 1978, ''Gee Bee''. Following this, Namco developed and released the highly popular fixed shooter game ''Galaxian'' in 1979 to compete with Taito Corporation's successful earlier game, ''Space Invaders''. ''Galaxian'' revolutionized the arcade industry as the first game to use RGB-color graphics, and it and its 1981 sequel ''Galaga'' became fixtures in what was subsequently remembered as the "Golden Age of arcade video games" - the peak era of arcade video game popularity and technological innovation. However, Namco's project in between, 1980's ''Pac-Man'', would arguably become even more definitive of both the era and Namco's legacy. A young Namco employee named Toru Iwatani designed the game with the intention to appeal to a wider audience beyond young boys and teenagers - demographics that were typical of the time because of the prevalence of space shooter-themed arcade machines. He therefore fashioned a game out of maze-like elements and a colorful aesthetic with cute character designs, including a player-character he originally named "Puck-man" after its resemblance to a yellow hockey puck. The character and the game itself were renamed ''Pac-Man'' for the North American release.
-Despite its initially lukewarm reception in Japan, it is difficult to understate the impact of the North American release of the game ''Pac-Man''. It quickly became far more popular than anything seen in the game industry up to that point, grossing over $1 billion in quarters within a decade, and towards the end of the 20th century, the game's total gross in quarters had been estimated at more than 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion), making it the highest-grossing video game of all time. It established the maze chase game genre, and is also credited for laying the foundations for the stealth genre due to its emphasis on avoiding enemies rather than fighting them. It introduced what is argued to be the first original gaming mascot, [[Pac-Man]], and in doing so demonstrated the potential of characters in video games. It was the first video game to feature power-ups, and is often credited as the first game to feature cut scenes, albeit not to the degree that Nintendo's own revolutionary arcade offering, ''[[Donkey Kong (universe)|Donkey Kong]]'', had the following year. Finally, it opened gaming to female audiences, and it was gaming's first licensing success. Pac-Man was determined to have the highest brand awareness of any video game character among American consumers.
+Despite its initially lukewarm reception in Japan, it is difficult to overstate the impact of the North American release of the game ''Pac-Man''. It quickly became far more popular than anything seen in the game industry up to that point, grossing over $1 billion in quarters within a decade, and towards the end of the 20th century, the game's total gross in quarters had been estimated at more than 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion), making it the highest-grossing video game of all time. It established the maze chase game genre, and is also credited for laying the foundations for the stealth genre due to its emphasis on avoiding enemies rather than fighting them. It introduced what is argued to be the first original gaming mascot, [[Pac-Man]], and in doing so demonstrated the potential of characters in video games. It was the first video game to feature power-ups, and is often credited as the first game to feature cut scenes, albeit not to the degree that Nintendo's own revolutionary arcade offering, ''[[Donkey Kong (universe)|Donkey Kong]]'', had the following year. Finally, it opened gaming to female audiences, and it was gaming's first licensing success. Pac-Man was determined to have the highest brand awareness of any video game character among American consumers.
 ''Pac-Man'' became one of few games to have been consistently published for over three decades, with many remakes and sequels released on numerous platforms. This is not to mention the influx of unauthorized ''Pac-Man'' clones that took place soon after the original release, nor of the ill-fated port of the game for the Atari 2600 (which ironically was a contributing factor to the infamous 1983 video game crash in North America due to the debilitating technical limitations of the console). An American-produced derivative titled ''Ms. Pac-Man'' garnered a great deal of success of its own due to improvements over the original title, and despite its development happening without Namco's consent, Namco received the rights to the property and subsequently included the feminine take on ''Pac-Man'' in various ''Pac-Man'' compilations and ports. As the series progressed with continued releases that explored different genres, the iconic yellow wedge shape that ordinarily defined the title character onscreen was phased out for a design closer to his appearance on the promotional artwork printed on the arcade machines themselves - an abstract, spherical humanoid with rudimentary limbs and a massive face with a stick-like nose that varied in length between appearances. This was done in ''Pac-Land'' in part to tie in with a Hanna-Barbera animated series about Pac-Man that ran for two seasons in 1982 and 1983.