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By: Joel Johnson
Everyone at the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship was promoting something. Namco—or as the North American executive corrected himself, "Bandai Namco"—was promoting Pac-Man in his latest debut, Pac-Man Championship Edition. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwantani was promoting his legacy, a 26-year-old game that will serve as his greatest impact on the world as he retires to a professor ship at a Japanese university. Microsoft promoted the Xbox 360, of course.
And even the tournament winner Carlos Daniel Borrego Romero was competing not just to win a custom Xbox 360, 100,000 Xbox Points, and
"26 years' worth of Quiznos," but to promote the FPS he's working on called "Biops
2." Did I mention Quiznos? They were there as well, promoting their sandwiches.
Yet when the two final tournament competitors took the stage—whittled from ten flown in from around the world after qualifying last month on Xbox Live—to complete the final five-minute points battle in the latest version of Pac-Man, even the least interested clock-punchers couldn't help but stand on tipped-toes to see which puck-man would eat the most fruit to become the Twin Galaxies-approved Pac-Man world champion. I hope for Carlos' sake there are Quiznos in Mexico. (And that they stay in business for another 26 years.)
Toru Iwatani was moved nearly to tears by the proceedings; it's clear that Pac-Man really is his "greatest gift to the world," as terrifyingly ephemeral as that seems. Kudos to Namco for promoting a new edition that keeps the basic formula intact. I was sure that Iwatani's sending off was going to be used to launch a new platformer version of the game or something equally as inane. Instead he goes into the sunset, leaving behind a game that's been played over 10 billion times by Namco's estimations, a game-inspired pop theme song, and a host of licensed and unlicensed merchandise, not the least of which were the glazed doughnuts with M&Ms for eyes I used to eat on the way to school in kindergarten in Bolivar, Missouri. If nothing else, I'll always be grateful for those, Mr. Iwatani.
The new version of the game tweaks the formula in small but repercussive ways. New maps have been created that fill up the space afforded by a widescreen TV, such as the "freeway" map that held long parallel channels through which Pac-Man can be steered. (Sort of like Frogger with supernaturally perturbed cars.) New modes add dots and power pills in waves that appear only after you've cleared the previous groups, and new dots don't necessarily appear all at once. An especially enticing mode adds a glow around Pac-Man and the ghosts that provides the only illumination of the maze walls, not unlike the flashlight strapped onto the guns in recent first-person shooters. And of course the whole mess can be downloaded and played on Xbox Live starting tomorrow.
For some reason, no Quiznos was served at the event, despite placards showing the latest greasy sandwiches available in the shops. Instead I nibbled on my tub of Corn Pops, bought as a prop for a video I didn't end up shooting. Sweet and crunchy and simple. I like it when companies realize it's best not to mess with success.
