Rewind retro video of the day... From Akron, OH, here are Buckner & Garcia with their 1982 single Pac-Man Fever, which would later appear on the album of the same name. The song peaked at #9 in the US. Pac-Man was released in 80 by Japanese video game company Namco, and licensed for distribution by Midway in the US. Upon its release, it became a social phenomenon. Not only is it one of the classics in video games, it also became an icon in 80s popular culture. Amongst its achievements: • It is one of the highest-grossing video games of all time, having generated more than $2.5 billion in quarters by the 90s • Pac-Man has appeared in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs (Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Jr., Super Pac-Man, etc.), along with numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs • Among American consumers, Pac-Man has the highest brand awareness of any video character, recognized by 94% of them • It is one of the longest-running franchises from the golden age of video games. The golden age of video games began with Taito/Midways Space Invaders (78) and ended with Nintendos Punch-Out!! (84). Amongst the more notable games: • Lunar Lander (Atari, 79)- The first game to use vector graphics, but was generally deemed boring. Most of these were converted to the more successful Asteroids. Battlezone, Tempest, Gravitar, Star Trek, and Star Wars would also use this technology. • Berzerk (Stern, 80)- The first game to use speech synthesis. • Centipede (Atari, 80)- Along with Missile Command, one of the first games to use a trackball. • Phoenix (Amstar/Centuri/Taito, 80)- One of the first games to feature a boss battle. • Rally-X (Namco, 80)- The first game to feature a bonus round, background music, and a radar. • Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 81)- Laid the foundation for the platform game genre, added storytelling to video games, and introduced the character Mario. • Scramble (Konami/Stern, 81)- The first scrolling shooter game. • Pole Position (Namco/Williams, 82)- One of the first racing games featuring the third-person rear-view racer format player perspective. • Xevious (Namco/Atari, 82)- The first game to feature a commercial. • Zaxxon (Sega, 82)- The first game to employ isometric axonometric projection... which the game was named after. • Dragons Lair (Cinematronics/Taito, 83)- An early laserdisc video game, allowing film-quality animation. youtube/watch?v=ZrwnAdqBCg0
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 01:38:33 +0000
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