Minor flaws rarely detract from an excellent experience playing Google’s Pac-Man game
by Dylan Nugent

Pac-Man has gone from being an arcade game to one of the world’s most recognizable and beloved games. Images courtesy of Amazon.com

On May 22, 1980, a then little-known company called Namco made history. In Japan, they released an arcade game developed by three men: Toru Iwatani, who designed it, Shigeo Funaki, who programmed it, and Toshio Kai, who developed the sound and music. They called their game Pac-Man.

Over the next thirty years, Pac-Man would go on to stand the test of time. The game would be often cited as one of the first explosions of the video game industry, and probably the earliest game that was played equally by both genders. The deceptively simple game-play involved a soon to become iconic yellow circle (Pac-Man) eating smaller circles called pellets, all while trying to avoid the four ghosts that chased Pac-Man around the field.

Pac-Man was so popular, in fact, that it inspired a separate company, the General Computer Corporation, to sell an unauthorized sequel to Midway, the US distributor of Pac-Man, the following year (1981). The sequel, called “Ms. Pac-Man,” was very popular, and unsurprisingly led to a large legal battle between Namco and Midway that eventually resulted in Namco owning the rights to Ms. Pac-Man as well as the original game.

Despite much of this history having been forgotten by all but those who read the Wikipedia article, Pac-Man’s continued popularity remains evident. In any place that still contains arcade games, it is pretty much a guarantee that some variation of Pac-Man will be present (usually in the popular Galaga/Ms. Pac-Man combo form). Pac-Man has become a character as iconic, if not more iconic, then Mario — even people who have never touched a video game or walked past an arcade know who Pac-Man is.

Google often releases doodles to commemorate various anniversaries (and a full listing of their various doodles can be found at http://www.google.com/logos/index.html). So when it came to the thirtieth anniversary of Pac-Man, it was no surprise that a new doodle would be up in place of their usual logo. What did come as a surprise was that it was not really a doodle — for the entire weekend of May 21 to May 23, Google replaced their logo with a playable version of the Pac-Man game.

In addition to marking the first interactive Google logo ever, the game was also very popular. In fact, its popularity was as proving as Pac-Man’s: Google released a page where users could continue to play the Pac-Man game even after it got taken down at http://www.google.com/pacman.

The Google Pac-Man game, with the same familiar addictive gameplay that made Pac-Man great, was unsurprisingly an instant hit. However, for those who play deeper into the game, there are some hidden shout-outs that make it even more enjoyable. A multiplayer mode exists; double clicking the insert coin adds Ms. Pac-Man to the mix, who can be controlled by the WASD keys instead of the arrow keys on the keyboard, allowing two players to battle each other. Further, reaching the two hundred and fifty sixth level (by no means an easy feat) produces a screen reminiscent of the kill screen in the original games: screens that occurred due to memory storage errors or other programming glitches and caused games to break after a certain level developers had never actually expected to get to (named kill screens due to their inevitable tendency to kill the player who was unable to navigate the second half of the screen). Since Google’s kill screen occurs on the exact same level despite using modern technology and being unlikely to actually experience a screen rendering glitch, it is almost definite that this was an intentional homage to the original game.

There are a few minor flaws in the game. The ghosts’ pathfinding is not always stellar, and if the player just leaves Pac-Man in the starting area, they will notice that the ghosts actually have no idea how to turn into that zone. It is also easy to get Pac-Man stuck against a wall by trying to turn too early or too late, but this is as much a feature as a problem, as it simply adds to the difficulty.

Finally, there is the repetitive level design — or rather, the lack of any level design at all. Every level is the same Google logo (except, of course, the two hundred and fifty sixth). However, for a simple Google doodle it is still above and beyond what anyone expected, and the numbers speak for themselves: according to office productivity tracker RescueTime, 4.82 million hours were spent playing Google’s Pac-Man just over the launch weekend. The popularity of the game makes it indisputable that most people do not care about cutting edge graphics, intricate level design, or even constant variety in their games. They just want to kill a little time and have a little fun, and Google’s Pac-Man doodle does just that.

This game received four and a half out of five stars ★★★★