61 Frames Per Second

Browse by Tags

• WTFriday: Pac-Man Vs. France

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. While Pac-Man is usually viewed in a positive light, fans of this old-school gaming celebrity conveniently forget one important fact: he is a remorseless eating machine. Strawberries, pretzels, and even keys disappear into the gaping maw of this urine-colored glutton as he searches for a way to blot out the pain inflicted by his apocalyptic divorce from Ms. Pac-Man (formerly Mrs.). And sometimes, it gets ugly. A recent videos of Pac-Man's latest episode have surfaced (via Kotaku) which features what we can assume to be a PCP-fueled rampage through the streets and golf courses of France. For the following video, parental guidance is strongly advised. More scandal after the cut. Read More... Posted Apr 17 2009, 12:45 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: pac-man, video, bob mackey, wtfriday

• Namco, Why You Gotta Make Me Hit You: Sonic Co-Creator’s Unnecessary Pac-Man “Comeback”

  Namco has hired Hirokazu Yasuhara to create a new Pac-Man to celebrate the little yellow glutton’s 30th anniversary in 2010. Namco chief of operations Makoto Iwai told Gamasutra that they’re making the game as a comeback vehicle for Pac-Man, to try and make him a relevant icon in today’s game market. When it comes to making great character-based games, you can’t do much better than Yasuhara. Yuji Naka’s gotten most of the glory, but Yasuhara was the real brains behind Sonic the Hedgehog’s glory days. He acted as director for the original Sonic trilogy on Genesis, was lead designer for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, and headed up Sonic’s unfinished Saturn debut, Sonic Extreme. After leaving Sega, he joined Naughty Dog and acted as a designer for Jak 2 and 3 as well as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. That right there is a flawless pedigree, a veritable trail of excellence blazed across a decade and a half. Why in the hell has this man been hired to make Pac-Man relevant again when Pac-Man’s creator already did just that two years ago? Someone please tell me how it makes sense to hire one of the best platformer designers of all time to make a freaking Pac-Man game? History has shown that a Pac-Man platformer is a terrible, terrible idea. Oh, you don't remember? Read More... Posted Mar 06 2009, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, pac-man, gamasutra, sega, sonic the hedgehog, genesis, namco, Saturn, sonic 3, sonic 2, sonic & knuckles, Pac-man championship edition, toru iwatani, sonic extreme, hirokazu yasuhara, pac-man world, tycho brahe, pac-land, pac-man 2

• WAKA, WAKA: Pac-Man Championship Made Old School-er

  I was a little sad last month when putting together my closing-yet-incomplete thoughts on the games of 2008. During those twelve glorious months, the majority of the games I played to completion were from 2007. (The way 2009’s going at this point, it looks like this year’s going to be just the same.) So when I was thinking of the games that sparked my brain the most last year, some were sadly excluded from mention. My game of the year for 2007 and probably the game I played the most in 2008? Pac-Man Championship Edition. No, seriously. That game is pure. Its rules are perfect. Its challenge increases seamlessly along with your skill. Its presentation is a quiet symphony of graphical polish and dynamic sound that encourages as much focus in a player as it does tension. It’s iconic but it’s also a legitimate sequel, improving on one of videogames’ most fundamental forms of play without relying heavily on nostalgia as a hook. It’s better than Pac-Man and it’s better than Ms. Pac-Man. Crap, I’m tearing up just thinking about it! Siliconera posted up this NES-styled mock up of Pac-Man Championship Edition and it really emphasizes how vital the widescreen format is in making PMCE a sequel that enhances Pac-Man fundamentals. Read More... Posted Feb 03 2009, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, pac-man, xbox 360, nes, namco, siliconera, ms pac-man, Pac-man championship edition, toru iwatani

• Game Compilations: The Good, the Bad, and the Fugly

  Time was, I thought game compilations, museum, and anniversary collections, and anything else you’d want to call them were the cat’s meow. Greatest thing since sliced bread. The *ahem* tits. Then The Mega Man Anniversary Collection for Gamecube came out back in 2004. Fifty simoleons for all eight console Mega Man games plus an opportunity to finally play Mega Man: The Power Battle and Power Fighters? Sounds like a dream come true. Then I found out that instead of the A button making the little blue fella shoot and the B button making him jump, the buttons were reversed for the compilation. There is no way to change this control scheme. It turns playing Mega Man 1 through 6 into a personalized hell, the place where cheat code users go when they die. Compilations are dangerous business because, more often than not, the publisher puts no effort whatsoever into them and people buy them anyway. That’s how you end up with Mega Man’s jumping and shooting getting reversed, how Sega releases not one, but two Sonic the Hedgehog collections with fantastic unlockables that are almost impossible to unlock, and how Namco can release the same damn Galaga/Dig Dug/Pac-man collection nine-hundred times. Of course, they really can be a treat. Despite all the load times and inaccessible unlockables, the Sonic Mega Collection is still a great way to play Sonic at his best. Occasionally, budget numbers like the Capcom Classics Mini Mix, a no-frills GBA collection with Bionic Commando NES, Strider NES, and Mighty Final Fight, can come along and introduce you to games you’ve never ever heard of. (Seriously, Mighty Final Fight? When did that happen? It’s got mini Haggar!) They are a more palatable alternative to Virtual Console-style downloads too, as far as price is concerned. Sega’s just-announced Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3 and Xbox 360 comes with forty games, and for thirty bucks you get what Nintendo would charge $120 for on Wii. Plus, they wouldn’t even all fit on the Wii’s memory! But again, the production values are highly questionable. Read More... Posted Nov 06 2008, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, pac-man, street fighter, capcom, bionic commando, nes, sega, mega man, sonic the hedgehog, strider, mighty final fight, game boy advance, virtual console, dig dug, Capcom classics collection, Capcom mini mix, galaga

• Portrait of the Prince Pre-Persia

  There’s something about seeing the physical inspiration for a fictional character that is both deeply exciting and unsettling. The pizza missing a lone slice, covered in tomato sauce and bubbling cheese, is downright creepy when you think about it as a basis for Toru Iwatani’s Pac-Man. Seriously think about it. That’s what Pac-man would look like if he was skinned! What does that say about Iwatani, or even me for thinking about it? Take good ol’ Mario Segali as another example. You can practically see the ghost of a red hat perched atop his mustachioed dome. Now picture him breaking bricks with his scalp and jumping on turtles. Sickly fascinating, no? I’m told this footage of Jordan Mechner’s kid brother has been floating around the net for quite some time, but today’s the first time I’ve ever laid eyes on it. Some twenty years ago, Mechner dressed the lad up in whites and then set him off running, climbing, and falling as a model for his seminal masterwork, Prince of Persia. Thing is, the boy looks exactly like the Prince in motion. Read More... Posted Oct 29 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, pac-man, prince of persia, ubisoft, super mario bros, jake gyllenhaal, Jordan mechner, GWAR

• Burn Your Skin for Pac-Man

  I'm always interested in video game-based body modification. Though I sport no video game tattoos of my own or indeed, any tattoos at all (am I a chicken? You'll never know), I like to know what kinds of choices people made before they went ahead and got Mario stamped upside-down on their foreheads. I'd especially like to know what the motivation is for the latest fad going around: burning images, particularly of game characters, into the skin with industrial strength lasers. For one thing, I'm not sure about the intended use of these lasers under circumstances when the Stupid virus isn't rampant, but I'm pretty sure body art isn't it. Health regulations? Risk of post-procedure infection? Ahhh, big deal! Read More... Posted Jul 04 2008, 11:34 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: pac-man, retro, body modification, gaming culture, laser images, tattoos, video game tattoos, laser burn, space invaders, nostalgia

• Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook, From A to Wii

  Written by Amber Ahlborn At some point in the 1980s, the year nebulous in my memory, my mom bowled with her team every Thursday night. I loved Thursday nights because dad let me stay up late to watch M.A.S.H. and Benny Hill. Sometimes he and I would hop in the car and go visit mom at the alley, and that was the best. Dad would sit and watch mom bowl. Me? I would squeeze every last quarter I could get out of him. With a fist full of change and dollars soon to be converted into change, I’d walk down to the alley’s hamburger bar, snag a stool, and drag it through the glass doors into the arcade. Without deviation, I’d position my stool in front of the “Ostrich Game” and stay planted there until I ran out of money. I’m speaking of Joust of course, but at that age I could neither reach the controls without a stool to sit on nor read very well. Read More... Posted Jun 02 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: pac-man, metroid, wii, legend of zelda, snes, nes, ico, mega man, atari, gamecube, amber ahlborn, kaboom, katamari damacy, chrono trigger, firsts, pikmin, Playstation, joust, pitfall, star fox, ps2, frogger, super mario bros, ds

• Webcomic Watch: Eegra

  Videogame-themed webcomics are a mixed (and dizzyingly numerous) bunch; for every Penny Arcade, there're a few hundred semi-comedic fan-fictions stapled together from sprite sheets and MS Paint doodles. It's always a relief to find something with some genuine craft put into it. The relatively new Eegra's got craft in spades — artist Patrick Alexander deploys an impressive range of visual styles — but it's also got a glorious mix of old-timey wordplay and visual grotesquerie. Read More... Posted May 23 2008, 01:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: pac-man, peter smith, penny arcade, mario, patrick alexander, soul calibur, webcomics, eegra

• Yeah, But Is It Art?: Pac-Man Championship Edition

  There’s no time like the present to revitalize fundamental game types. Like abstractionist painters finding new creative horizons in crafting a pristine still life, designers are going back to the well, throwing off the shackles of complex narrative and detail rich presentations to create more immediate, visceral experiences. Once June rolls around, we here in the United States will get our greedy little hands on Space Invaders Extreme and Arkanoid DS, stylized modernizations of Taito classics with gameplay rooted in thirty year-old tradition. The trend, however, kicked off one year ago when Toru Iwatani released Pac-Man Championship Edition. Read More... Posted May 16 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, pac-man, yeah but is it art, taito, space invaders extreme, arkanoid ds

• It Ain’t Violent, It’s Fashion

  Peter Gronquist, the LA artist who turns the tools of ultra violence into Madison Avenue delights, just opened a new show at Gallery 1988. While I can’t deny the allure of a Louis Vuitton chainsaw, the most fetching item on display is also the one that hates ghosts the most. Pac-man grenades. That is just plain HOT! Read More... Posted May 09 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, violence, peter gronquist, pac-man