Pizza Slice Guy and the Neon Ghost Rave

Pac-Man/Puck-Man - Rally X - New Rally X

Pac-Man/Puck-Man - 1980 - Personal high score: 43900

As redundant as it feels to say, Pac-Man is absolutely one of Namco’s best early titles. I would be genuinely surprised if anyone reading this hasn’t played it before. Eat dots, avoid ghosts, eat the ghosts if you eat a big dot. Simple stuff, universally understood. With that said, what makes Pac-Man a particularly stand out title to me is the amount of deceptive depth and personality crammed into such a simplistic game where all you can do is move in four directions and that’s it. The amount of strategising you’re required to do on the fly with constant split second decisions on risks versus rewards is genuinely surprising, all thanks to the fantastic ghost AI. Each ghost behaves differently in a way that reflects their personality. Blinky the “Shadow” chases you from behind. Pinky the “Speedy” aims to rush ahead of you to ambush you. Inky the “Bashful” somewhat cautiously approaches you from the side while Clyde is just completely clueless and has no idea what he’s doing 24/7. The ghosts are unpredictable and extremely good at teaming up to corner you, but they do behave by following consistent rules and once you understand them the game gets a ton more fun. Knowing how each ghost approaches you, what pathways they will and won’t follow you down, understanding the ways that you can intentionally bait them or throw them off your trail, knowing which spots of the maze are safer than others, it starts to feel like a genuine battle of wits against the ghosts AI. This is a huge part of what makes score attack so satisfying, managing to bait them all into a single hallway just to turn the tables on them when they think they have you cornered with a power pellet and getting to eat them all in a row for a ton of points? That never stops feeling fantastic, especially when you manage to pull it off by the later stages of the game where the ghosts stay vulnerable for far less time than they do at the start and getting them all at once requires getting them even closer to you before you grab that power pellet, increasing the risk involved. It can be a lot to follow at once (which is why I’m not very good at it) but I still find myself constantly coming back to Pac-Man for those satisfying heights when I’m on my a-game and have that real sense of having manipulated a very hectic and unpredictable game to my own will.

Early Japanese versions of Pac-Man were instead called Puck-Man instead of Pac-Man. The name was changed upon localisation when they realised how easy it would be to vandalise the arcade cabinet and change the P to an F. You can see the two versions and the differences in the ghost names above, Japanese Puck-Man screenshot on the left, Western Pac-Man screenshot on the right.