Sunday, May 24, 2015

Pac Man Fever

Pac- Man Fever



Google Pac Man




You hit that Google audio file and you hear that theme music, you automatically know what game you are about to play. In continuing a theme about events that happened 35 years ago, Pac Man came out this month 35 years ago.  Pac Man still influences culture today.  There was a newer version of that crappy cartoon, the internet is full of emulators and smart phones have the Pac Man app.  Even Budweiser used the game for their Up for whatever campaign Super Bowl ad-

And even the new Adam Sandler movie, which is sure to be awful because it’s an Adam Sandler movie, Pixels features Pac- Man prominently in the trailer- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAHprLW48no

35 years later the game and its influence is still going strong!









Another Free Pac- Man emulator Click here!


I know by placing this on line emulator there, some of you are not going to read the rest of this blog post.  For those of you pushing on, and if you are of a certain age, you probably had Pac Man fever like I did in the 80’.s  I am all about Salt Life now in my 40;s, but  I was all about that Pac-Life in the 80;s.  There were many Saturday’s that I woke up on my Pac Man sheets,  wearing my Pac- Man PJ’s, and ran downstairs to  pour a bowl of nasty Pac- Man cereal and watch the original, wack-ass Pac- Man cartoon. I had Pac- Man Fever! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3n22GQMgcU




As for the game, Big Hutch and I had the Atari 1600 game, The Atari 400 version, the held hand Pac Man game…. All my Pac Man needs were covered… at home.  Side brotha note… Pac Man fever was so bad, a kid in my hood wanted to fight me when I didn’t let him play my hand held Pac Man game.  Like fight me fight me! He had that fever, son!

The thing is, as much as I loved Pac- Man, I sucked at playing the game.  Like really sucked!  For some of you younger brotha's,  who may not know the Pac- Man levels, the game starts you out at one level and continues on essentially just getting faster each level up and becomes a test of speed, endurance, and your joy stick skills.   Level 1 is Cherry, Level 2 is Strawberry, and level 3 is Orange




And it goes all the way up to a Key Level and it just begins repeating the key level until you die or until you get to 255 Keys which is some crazy, video game record/myth type shit and the game has a crazy kill screen at the end!


 So back in the day, there used to be these places called ‘arcades” where a young brotha could go, take his quarters from collecting glass bottles and cans in the streets and play video games.  Now in the arcade, Pac Man was always busy.  Whether it was some brotha  playing the game and getting to Key level(s) or crowds of brotha’s watching said brotha play the game .  Side brotha note- the dude in our hood that could play the hell out of some Pac Man was Jeff Hallett.  Jeff was so good at Pac Man , we kinda marveled at his ability to play.  Jeff could routinely get to Key 
Levels on 1 quarter.  But I digress!   
How come no brotha;s in this arcade?

So whenever I got my chance to play, I was nervous and was subsequently eaten by ghosts maybe on Strawberry. Maybe.   And I would subsequently get clowned by all my friends for wasting my quarter to lose on Strawberry.  So I did what any reasonable, 10 year old would do, I cheated.  Yep I bought the Pac Man” Figure this shit out cheat book”  that would teach you the pattern for Pac Man to beat the game.  I bought it for a dollar at Wilkes Magazines and studied that shit like it was the SAT.  The next time, I played Pac Man, not only was I gonna pass strawberry- I was looking at like 5 or 10 key level, baby! I was ready.



Except, I still sucked!  The patterns was all tricky and, not being that bright at 10, I could not figure out which way to go all the time and then I got nervous with people watching me,  and then I got eaten.  And then I got clowned.  And then I just kinda faded away from Pac-Man.  It’s not that I didn’t like the game, or my PJ’s, or my sheets , or the cereal( well the cereal actually was terrible), I just was never good at it.  Now I have the game on my Ps2 and the kids and I do Old School Gaming night once a month.  I’m still bad at it!  My son can make it to like Apple and I’m still getting eaten by ghosts on Strawberry.  It’s an embarrassment that I have dealt with for 35 years and I just gotta accept… I love Pac Man but I suck at playing it!

-The Producer



Props to you if you finished and didn’t just stop and play the simulator.

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