Good, old-fashioned, no frills Pac-Man hits the Arcade Archives

Don’t Puck-Man with Pac-Man

Every week I show up to hand y’all the lowdown on the latest entry in Hamster’s bursting-at-the-seams Arcade Archives range. Most of the time it’s relatively easy — In my advancing years, I’ve played almost every arcade game under the sun. Other times it’s notably harder, especially with games that never saw the light outside of Japan. This week, however, what even is there to say? It’s Namco’s Pac-Man. Just Pac-Man. As naked as you or I right now.

Hitting the arcades in 1980 — before being remixed, rehashed, tweaked, ported, adapted, and ripped-off for almost every platform going — Pac-Man is the tale of a yellow, hockey-puck shaped fella dashing through a maze, munching up power pellets, and avoiding the pursuit of a crafty gang of cute ghosts. You know all this, of course, because you like video games, and there is arguably none more iconic, more influential, and more enduring franchise of the medium’s golden age.

Check out Pac-Man in the video below, courtesy of YouTuber Old Classic Retro Gaming.

Pac-Man would grow beyond arcade gaming to become a full-on pop culture sensation. Today, some 40 years on from his debut, Pac-Man remains perhaps the single most recognizable video game character of all time, adorning merchandise and paraphernalia across the globe. With a nigh-on endless list of sequels and spin-offs, some terrible cartoons, a pinball machine, and a tabletop edition, (not to mention one hell of a pop song), to his credit — Pac-Man will never, ever vanish from the public conscience. Not a bad legacy at all for a meager handful of yellow pixels.

Pac-Man is available to download now on Nintendo Switch, priced at $8. It may also be available on other platforms.