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News 
Pac-Man Twist
- Posted By Eric
Tajchman, 05.13.2003
When Nintendo wants to stress a feature they think could revoltuionize an industry, they pull out all the stops . . . even the legal ones.
During today's Pre-E3 media conference, Nintendo's own Shigeru Miyamoto admitted that he had admired one third-party game above all: Pac-Man. In fact, he had even begun development on a Pac-Man title for the GameCube without permission from the Pac-Owner, Namco.
However, Miyamoto invited out the creator of Pac-Man, Tooru Initawa, to test out the demo along with himself, NOA Vice-President George Harrison, and EA's own resident game guru, Sims creator Will Wright. To settle things once and for all, Miyamoto challenged Iwatani to a Pac-Man battle for the right to use Pac-Man. Obviously a stunt for show and flare, but it was nonetheless the stage in which the world first saw Pac-Man.
The concept of Pac-Man is cleverly simple, and it's a surprise no one thought of it before. One person using a GBA guides the chomping yellow circle along the original vintage board. Three others, using a 3-way split screen on the GameCube play as the Ghosts, though their view is limited to a 3D 3/4 top down isometric view, which makes finding the Pac-Man all the much more difficult. When one player catches the yellow semi-circle, the game ends and the scoring players (Pac-Man and those weho caught him) are given their points and the two switch places. The winning ghost becomes Pac-Man and the other becomes a ghost.
Needless to say, Miyamoto won, otherwise the game wouldn't be in production anymore and I wouldn't have written this. Nothing beyond the simple gameplay was shown, though expect to see a lot more innovation when this game is finally released.
Source: Nintendo
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