New Pac Man is swan song for founder

[WilliamPitt]

New Pac Man is swan song for founder
Classic game reborn on Xbox Live as a tribute to retiring designer

By Kenneth Li

Updated: 8:56 p.m. ET June 5, 2007
NEW YORK - Pac Man will be reborn on Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox Live online service Wednesday as a final tribute for designer Toru Iwatani, who is retiring from the $30 billion games industry he helped ignite.

(MSNBC is a joint Microsoft - NBC Universal venture.)

The new version of the iconic arcade game is a faithful interpretation of the addictive 27-year-old original, where players wrenched joystick controllers to race a character — resembling a yellow pizza missing a slice — around a digital maze to chomp white pellets and chase multicolored "ghosts."

The new game, "Pac Man Championship Edition," is the second and final version Iwatani personally designed, and was created for the final round of the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship in New York, when nine finalists played it for the first time.

Iwatani, 52, an employee of Japan's Namco Bandai Holdings , said in an interview he will retire from active duty at Namco and spend more time teaching the next generation of game designers at Tokyo Polytechnic University.

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19054387/

[Systematic Chaos]

1. All of the Pac-Man games rate among my all time faves.

I especially like Jr. Pac Man with the scrolling maze, Super Pac Man where Pac could turn huge and travel over the ghosts, and the Baby Pac Man pinball/maze game hybrid. Geez, I still remember finding my first Pac Man game at the deli by my Middle School and becoming addicted to it. :)

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

2. I just played Pac Man CE this past weekend.

It's really, really fun. And a great new take on an old classic.