The Pac-Man Swimsuit

By Jeremy M. Zos

From  http://www.joystickdivision.com/

Wocka wocka wocka

​A friend of mine recently shared this sexy Pac-Man inspired swimsuit by designer James Lillis, and something told me that I should share it with you folks. It may interest you to know that the same man also designed a line of Star Wars-inspired swimwear. You know, for dorks.

Check out a couple more images below.

Here you go.

For more images, head over here.

Human Pac-Man Performance

Human Pac-Man Performance - Watch more Game Trailers

This is an awesome stop-motion that renders humans in a movie theater as a large-scale game of Pac-Man. It was done by the guy who did Human Tetris, Guillaume Reymond.

Pacman Anniversary Nostalgia – The Top 10 Greatest Pacman Accessories… Ever

By Intermaggio
from: http://www.devicemag.com/

In case you haven’t heard, Pacman’s 30th Anniversary was last week. In celebrating the nostalgic ’80s video game, we’ve put together this list with the greatest Pacman accessories ever, check them out.

The Pacman Plush Head

Is it a Halloween costume? Is it a ski mask? Or is it just an awesome bit of bling that tells everyone “Yeah. I was around in the ’80s. What of it?” This awesome plush fits comfortably on your head and keeps you warm while you show off just how cool you are.

The Pacman Rubik’s Cube

The Pacman Rubik’s cube is a custom-built fully functional Rubik’s cube with Pacman decals. The creator of this nifty device probably wanted to cause someone a mental breakdown- I mean look at it. Combining a Rubik’s Cube with Pacman. There’s no way anyone could let that thing stay unsolved- I’d be up all night.

Ms. Pacman Mary Janes

Though these nostalgic bits of footwear may look comfortable enough to be slippers, they are in fact Mary Jane style shoes. They are, indeed, super-cute, and made by hand. Kudos to the lovely lady who crafted these- I can’t imagine how great these would look on actual feet!

Pacman Rings

There’s an art to subtlety. You wont find any outrageous neon-yellow Pacmen or Pacwomen here- just an innocuous set of four rings that happen to depict a scene right out of Pacman. These rings say “I love Pacman, but I’m cool enough that I don’t have to yell about it.”

Pacman Power Pellets

This tin Pacman holds circular mints or sours, and acts as a dispenser. What’s cool about it is that the candies come right out of Pacman’s mouth, and it’s just like playing Pacman in reverse! Seriously though- this is a great little accessory, since it reminds you of the Pacman you know and love every time you go for a mint!

Pacman Neon Lights

Now come on. Tell me you don’t want one of these babies sitting prominently in your favorite bar? These neon Pacman lights look great, and are very colorful- making for great mood lighting.

Pacman Bikini

The ultimate gift for your retro-gaming girlfriend. This Pacman bikini has it all- our favorite part is the ghost hiding at the bottom. Presumably he doesn’t want to get eaten.

Pacman Hoodie

This hoodie depicts a giant level of Pacman. It’s an awesome, stylish way to show off your love of the ’80s sensation. Now if only we could find a way to make this giant level playable…

Original Pacman Arcade Game

We had to include it somewhere- the grandaddy of them all, the original Pacman arcade console. Countless hours have been played, and innumerable coins have been dropped into these classic arcade machines. The Pacman arcade game is a true novelty of the ’80s.

The PacM – Pacman Chair

This awesome chair is the work of designer Jose Jorge Hinojosa Primo, and is totally sweet. The PacM chair is sleek, sexy, comfortable, and most importantly, reminiscent of the Pacman we know and love. We can only hope this design becomes a reality.

That’s our roundup of the 10 greatest PacMan accessories. If you’re wondering what all the hubbub is about, you may want to read our post on Pacman’s 30th Anniversary – the celebrations continue, and even Google is having a ball!

Google gets Pac-Man fever

by Daniel Terdiman
from http://news.cnet.com/

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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man, Google has created the first-ever interactive and playable doodle, or custom home page logo. Seen here is a screenshot of the game, as it is being played on the Google home page.

(Credit: Google)

Saturday is the 30th anniversary of the release of Pac-Man, and to commemorate the occasion, Google is rolling out its first-ever truly interactive and playable home page logo, a fully-functional version of the iconic 1980s video game.

For years, Google has produced its so-called doodles for all kinds of holidays and special occasions, from Valentine's Day to the Fourth of July to Mother's Day and many others. In each case, the Google Doodle team works on a special logo that appears on the search engine's home page.

But a few months ago, when the team discovered that May 22 would be the 30th anniversary of the release of Pac-Man in Japan--it was actually called Puck Man, but that name was rejected in the United States because of the propensity of the "P" to chip and look like an "F"--they knew they had to do something extra special.

"When we became aware of the...anniversary," said Ryan Germick, a member of the Google Doodle team, "we thought it would be awesome to create not only something that references Pac-Man on the home page, but also something playable."

Until now, the most interactive of the logos had been one last Halloween that users could click to see more candy, and another for Isaac Newton's birthday that dropped apples. But for the Pac-Man celebration (see video below), Google has pulled out all the stops and has built, from scratch, a fully-playable version of the game, complete with 255 levels and re-created (but authentic) sounds and graphics. And unlike most of the special logos, which disappear off the home page--but are available in perpetuity in the archives--when the day is over, the Pac-Man doodle will stay up for 48 hours.

Click here for Video

According to Germick, the company worked with Pac-Man's publisher, Namco Bandai, to make the project as realistic as possible. Yet the Google team, with the inspirational lead of Marcin Wichary, a Google senior user experience designer, built their version of the game from the ground up using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

"We are very excited about the Google doodle project," Namco Bandai President and CEO Kenji Hisatsune told CNET by e-mail. "With this being the first time Google has ever included sound or made a doodle playable demonstrates just how big of an impact Pac-Man has made. "

And in the end, Wichary made a "picture-perfect" version of the game, Germick said. Except for one thing, of course. Being a Google home page logo, it had to have the word "Google" in its design, so Wichary, Germick and their colleagues built their version of Pac-Man so that it had the search engine's name in the middle of the iconic board.

Growing up with games
For Wichary, who grew up in Poland, arcade video games were in his blood. His father was a game technician who used to take him around to arcades and let him see how the various machines worked. From those humble beginnings came a lifetime of interest in games and, now, the motivation and passion to make the Pac-Man project be as faithful as possible to the original game.

That commitment to authenticity extended, Wichary explained, to some of Pac-Man's little quirks. For example, though many people would never have experienced this, the original arcade game had a bug that resulted in anyone making it past the 255th level hitting what came to be called the "kill screen," where the machine essentially crashed. Google made sure to build that experience into their game.

Pac-Man at 30 (images)

Similarly, after completing some levels of Pac-Man, a player would sit through brief animations, which came to be known as "coffee breaks," since it provided enough time to stretch one's fingers and, perhaps, grab a cup of coffee. That, too, has been built into the Google version.

And the team was so focused on making their version true to the original that they even included some of the smallest touches possible, things that only the most serious Pac-Man players would know about. Wichary said those include things like the fact that in the original game, the ghosts would give the slightest hint of which direction they were going to turn by moving their eyes that way. That was included in the Google version, as was a peculiarity that allowed Pac-Man to cut corners by a couple of pixels while the ghosts had to turn them at full right angles.

In addition, Wichary pointed out that the original game was "deterministic," meaning that players could memorize and develop winning patterns. Google, too, built that into its version, meaning that those who put some serious time into the game now will be able to make a lot of headway by figuring out the patterns that work best.

Namco Bandai President and CEO Kenji Hisatsune.

"Google spent a lot of man-hours making sure the simple things that make Pac-Man were included," Hisatsune said, referencing the coffee break and 255th-level bug.

Germick explained that at Google, the Doodle team is always looking for ways to make the Google home page a "fun place to be," so once the team came up with the idea for the Pac-Man project, "it didn't take a lot of selling internally. Once people saw it, they were like, 'Awesome.'"

Putting together the Google version of Pac-Man took a couple of months, but Wichary said it would be hard to estimate how much time they actually put into the project because "I enjoyed it so much. It was a throwback to my childhood."

Indeed, Wichary said that one of his biggest reasons for getting involved in this effort was to help bring other people back to their own childhoods.

I'm feeling lucky
On a normal day, Google's home page features two simple buttons: one for a full keyword-specific search and the famous "I'm feeling lucky" choice, which picks one result based on a keyword.

For the Pac-Man project, the team has converted the "I'm feeling lucky" button into an "Insert coin" slot, reminiscent of the place where countless kids have pumped billions of quarters over the years.

Fittingly, the team decided that if they were going to make their Pac-Man game authentic, they would need to make it playable by two people at once. So where a single player will, so to speak, insert a single coin, clicking twice sets up a two-player game. In that case, one player will be Pac-Man and the other will be Ms. Pac-Man, and both will be playing on the same board at the same time, using a single keyboard.

In the end, the Google team put a lot of focus into re-building what is one of the best-known and recognized games of all time. For a game that's 30 years old, it holds up remarkably well over time, and still has a hold on popular culture.

And as something that is still a hit so many years later, it made perfect sense to the Google team to break new ground with its approach to the Pac-Man project. Yet, rather than just getting code from Namco, they decided to do things the Google way.

"I wanted to do the same thing we do with everything else at Google," Wichary said, "which is use modern Web technologies. So we built it from the ground up."

Pac-Man Runs Amok

French prankster Remi Gaillard creates havoc with a real-life version of Pac-Man. (via Metafilter)

Top 10 Greatest Phrases To Ever Come Out Of A Video Game Character's Mouth

By Rich Knight:

I’ve said it time and time again, video game storylines suck. But that doesn’t mean that the character’s in those horrible storylines can’t come up with pearls of wisdom (Or is it just comic gold?) when they open up their mouths. Below are, in my opinion, the ten greatest phrases to ever come out of a video game character’s mouth. I’m sure I’m missing a few here, but that’s what comment boards are for. So here they are, the top ten phrases ever. See if you can close your eyes and remember just how they sounded the first time you first heard them. Just don’t do it while you’re driving or operating heavy machinery. You should usually keep your eyes open for stuff like that.

10. “Waka Waka Waka, etc.”—Pac-man
Fozzi from the Muppet Babies, is that you? Nope, it’s just everybody’s favorite yellow one-third-of-a-pizza chomping down on pellets while avoiding ghosts, or Ku Klux Klan members, or whatever the hell, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde happen to be. If you’re good enough to get past the first few rounds, you can even almost forget that Pac-Man is rude enough to talk while he’s eating, as the sound just becomes natural after awhile. Don’t forget the power pellet on your way around the bend!

9. “Aaaaaarrrrriiiiieeeesssss!!!!!”—Kratos, God of War
Shouting at the top of his lungs, Kratos, the pasty anti-hero of the ultra-violent series, God of War, made it clear from the very onset that he was ready to take on the gods. I personally love vendetta stories, and God of War has one of the greatest. This shouted phrase being a testament of a character of insurmountable power. Who knew that Kyle Barker from Living Single had such a killer voice?

8. “I’m sorry, but your princess is in another castle”—Toad, Super Mario Bros.
Whether that’s really Toad or not sitting there, fatter and plumper than he’s ever been, is disputable. But what isn’t disputable is that whoever he is, he’s going to be the bearer of bad news, telling you that you went through all that trouble just for nothing. No wonder Mario bangs his head on so many damn bricks all the time.

7. “Aym Banjo, whoooooa!”—Banjo in Diddy Kong Racing
While Diddy Kong Racing might most be remembered for its multi-vehicle awesomeness and Conker the squirl’s miscasting (He used to be so sweet before that dreadful, Bad Fur Day of his), what I remember most about this game was clicking on Banjo from Banjo-Kazooie fame and hearing his God-awful voice. Seriously, could he BE any more Red-necktified? I never saw him the same way again after that.

6. “Upside down whirlwind !#?whirlwind!”—Q*Bert
And you call yourself a gamer? If you can’t read that phrase up above, then you need to play Q*Bert again and land on one of the many enemies that pervade the playing field. That profane little whatever he is, is swearing up a storm!

5. “Jill, here’s a lockpick. It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you.”—Barry Burton, Resident Evil
Okay, what? Wasn’t anybody at Capcom aware that this is one of the worst statements in the history of video game statements ever? First off, who even addresses a person by what they’re good at? It’s not like you’re going to say to me, “Rich, here are some Zubaz pants. It might be handy if you, the master of imitating Joey Buttafuoco, put them on.” That would just be plain silly. And second off, well, there is no second off, this phrase is just plain stupid.

4. “I am error.”—random fat dude in “The Legend of Zelda 2”
It’s been said that this was merely an error in the translation (“I am Errol,” is what some people claim he’s supposed to say), but seriously, can’t anybody check these things out first before they ship them over here? At least it’s not nearly as bad as this next one.

3. “All your base are belong to us.”—CATS, Zero Wing
Whoever this CATS character is seriously needs to brush up on his engrish. If you can actually find the transcripts of what was originally intended for the game, though, you’ll find that it was actually pretty good. At least, good compared to lines like, “Somebody set up us the bomb,” and “You have no chance to survive make your time.” If this is all it takes to become a translator, writing nonsense, then please sign me up immediately.

2. “Do a barrel roll!/Try a somersault!/Use the boost to get through!”—Peppy Hare, Star Fox 64
Oh, Peppy, Peppy, Peppy, bless your heart for being so enthusiastic about your work. I love how every line Peppy says sounds like it has to be louder and more demanding than the last. It makes lines like, “Your father used to do it like that, too!” sound justified. You actually feel proud for following Peppy’s instructions. And heck, half the time, he’s right. I really DO need to do a barrel roll.

1. "Hadouken!"—"Sonic Boom!"—Ryu/Ken, Guile, Street Fighter series
Ah, childhood. You could not walk into an arcade without hearing, “Hadouken!”, “Sonic boom!” volleyed back and forth like a tennis match. Sometimes, I’d stand by the arcade cabinet, waiting for my turn to play and watch whole matches that consisted of nothing but hadoukens and sonic booms, the Ryu’s and Ken’s usually beating out the Guile’s since they didn’t have to hold back for two seconds or anything like that. Whoever thought of the idea of shouting out your attack (Probably DBZ creator, Akira Toriyama) before it was fired, was ingenius, absolutely ingenius. Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. Yoga flame!