Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani shows off early game sketches

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I have to apologize for not getting to this earlier – I had see the link a day or two ago but I forgot to mention it. But better late than never. Toru Iwatani, the now retired creator of Pac-Man, was in the Netherlands recently where he received a certificate from the Guiness Book of World Records on Pac-Man obtaining the highest number of installed arcade machines worldwide. Seems like it’s a bit late to be handing out a reward for that but I guess that also can be filed under the better late than never category as well. While there Mr. Iwatani shared some of his original Pac-Man sketches with the Dutch gaming media. It takes you back to the days when one guy could come up with a legendary game all by himself using nothing but a pencil and a few pieces of graph paper.

[Via GameSetWatch and Control Online]

Cabinet options: standard, deluxe, Lego (?!)

This is the kind of story I always love to see, as it shows the ingenuity of arcade fans. Lego enthusiast Ben Fleskes has done some pretty cool things in the past – a multitude of train models, the USS constitution and the Millennium Falcon. But he’s come to our attention this week by doing something extremely awesome, by putting together a fully functional tabletop arcade cabinet. As you can see, the cabinet has a Pac-Man marquee and side-art, and it runs a 48-in-1 JAMMA board with many 80s classics. Check out the video below, and then check out the link for more information.

[Lego table top arcade game] [Discuss on the forums]

The Official Pac-Man website

Via

Bandai Namco isn’t done gearing up for the 30th anniversary of their signature character Pac-Man yet, as they have now launched two websites  (which include a countdown to that anniversary) dedicated to the iconic guy. PacMan.com can be found in both English and Japanese, with the sites differing quite a bit depending upon the language. Currently the Japanese site has a better design with more content but both cover a history of the game, let you download PC-based or mobile Pac-Man games and even provide a source for official Pac-Man gear. Hopefully the English site will soon add the historical look at the game that the Japanese site has, which covers every Pac-Man game released since it was called Puckman.

At the moment both sites feature a countdown (currently set at 45 days) for the arrival of the anniversary, where I imagine that they will then update the sites to include information on the new Pac-Man Battle Royale arcade game and perhaps some other things.

[PacMan.com – English site / Japanese Site]

New pixel art Coin-Op Posters for charity are pretty cool + Pac-Man in Vegas pic

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Thanks to for the news

Art and arcades have always gone together in some form and while this story doesn’t have anything to do with sideart, it does have something to do with arcades being portrayed in art and for a good cause.

This artwork, done by Gary Lucken, features eleven different cabinets drawn in “pixel art” style and you can pick up a poster (for the game room, arcade or just because) for $25. The proceeds goes to a charity that works as follows:

SpecialEffect is a charity dedicated to helping ALL young people with disabilities to enjoy computer games. For these children, the majority of computer games are simply too quick or too difficult to play, and we can help them and their parents to find out which games they CAN play, and how to adapt those games that they can’t.

The go-between the artist and the charity is the Poster Cause Project. We’ve actually covered a few instances before of arcade titles that have specific functions for helping disabled gamers play, such as this article discussing efforts in the 70’s to make arcade games more accessible; to modern functions found particularly in racing games from Rush 2049 to a modified version of MaxiTune 3 so players in wheelchairs could easily play.

Find out more at The Poster Cause Project

[Via GameSet Watch]

Also as a little follow-up to Amusement Expo on something that is sort of art related, Namco was handing out a bunch of Pac-Man Mardi Gras Beads and the necklaces turned up in places on the strip outside of the show. Might be considered NSFW so it’s after the break.

Amusement Expo 2010: Pac-Man Battle Royale Hands-on

To begin our coverage of the 1st Amusement Expo which took place in Las Vegas, NV, I’ll start out with the Namco booth and work my way from there. Namco had a sizable booth that was near the entrance of the show (as usual) and dominating the booth was . We first reported the news that Namco would be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man with a new arcade release called Pac-Man Battle Royale. They had two cabinets at the show, cocktail style. While the game has intention of showing up in bars, it will work anywhere and it is not actually like Pac-Man CE at all, except for the graphics and changing mazes. You can see it below, the game has the player focus on eating the other Pac players.  Eating dots and ghosts are  sort of pointless not the primary focus of the game as in other Pac games and there is no scoring system aside from how many rounds each player wins but keep in mind that this is a prototype and there will be changes made to the game by it’s release in September. The cabinet will change too for the final release; they told me the hardware that it’s using which is a custom board and I can’t remember the name at the moment

I don’t have time to upload my other videos at the moment but I will be getting around to that later today Please check out there other videos I have from the show, I’ll have 12 of them up when finished which you can view on my Youtube channel. Pac-Man Battle Royale wasn’t the only new coin-op amusement product at the show so check out what else was there here. Also in anticipation of the release, if you need help finding an arcade/FEC/bar/etc near you (who you can pester into getting this or other games) check Aurcade.com or ArcadeFly.com

UPDATE: I have updated the release date info for this and several other games on our Arcade Release list for 2010.

Here is the direct link for 720p video

Pac-Man returns to arcades with Pac-Man Battle Royale at Amusement Expo 2010

Ever since Namco first announced Pac-Man CE for Xbox Live Arcade, I thought that the game in particular would be a perfect fit in arcades, which I have mentioned before in posts and to people at shows. So this news that Namco will be showing off a new Pac-Man game at the upcoming Amusement Expo 2010 next month in Las Vegas has me quite excited. The faint screen shot of the game looks like Pac-Man C.E. but with a very notable difference – the game supports 4 players! I am all for more 4 players-on-one-cabinet games as we haven’t seen many of those in recent times (the new Gaia Attack 4 and Jigsaw World Arena as exceptions).

Keep in mind it’s only a sneak peek so they might not even have a full cabinet at the show but if you needed any reason to go to the Expo next month, here’s a good one! I certainly plan on being there, where I will capture any video that I can of this game in action.

UPDATE: As per the comments below, there should be 2 cabinets to play at Amusement Expo.

UPDATE #2: Click here for the first hands-on look at the game from Amusement Expo 2010!

[Discuss on the forums]

The last Pac-Man cake you’d ever need

People making cakes about popular video game/arcade characters is becoming more of an art, as the boutique cake business creates fascinatingly detailed sculptures based upon different themes on a daily basis. Here is a Pac-Man cabinet cake – quite impressive. I had got a Pac-Man shaped cake for my last birthday but it wasn’t anything quite like this (not that I don’t appreciate the cake I got; it was delicious). You can find out more about the cake from it’s creators, Jet City Cakes.  To top this they should do an original Star Wars cockpit cabinet or a Sega R360, either of those would turn heads.

[Discuss on the forums]

The last Pac-Man cake you'd ever need

People making cakes about popular video game/arcade characters is becoming more of an art, as the boutique cake business creates fascinatingly detailed sculptures based upon different themes on a daily basis. Here is a Pac-Man cabinet cake – quite impressive. I had got a Pac-Man shaped cake for my last birthday but it wasn’t anything quite like this (not that I don’t appreciate the cake I got; it was delicious). You can find out more about the cake from it’s creators, Jet City Cakes.  To top this they should do an original Star Wars cockpit cabinet or a Sega R360, either of those would turn heads.

[Discuss on the forums]

Take a stroll through the virtual Pac-Man museum

Not many video games have enough material created around them to garner the attention needed for a museum type display but Pac Man certainly has and that has led to the creation of an online Pac-Man museum. The site is not endorsed by Namco but if anyone would ever put an actual Pac-Man exhibit to go to, the person who runs this site would be the one to talk to about it. They look at the many Pac-Man collectibles that you can find out there, cover the game’s history and provide a great source for buying everything Pac-Man related. check it out at the link below.

[Pac-Man Museum] [Discuss on the Forums]

Pac-Man makes the obligatory energy drink appearance

Street Fighter got an energy drink recently so why not the other great arcade icon, Pac-Man? Well, I wouldn’t have cared had Pac-Man never been used in marketing energy drinks but since he has, here is the mention of it. It’s cherry-flavored only – which is too bad as they could do all of the edible items in Pac-Man and really go all the way. I’m sure that Pretzel or key flavor would do really well – at least they wouldn’t vary much from what energy drinks usually taste like. 😛

[The Pac-Man Energy Drink @ Perpetual Kid] [Discuss on the Forum]