For most people in their mid or late ’20s at the moment, ‘gaming’ began with Pac Man. Perhaps, having one of the simplest gameplay, it touched a common chord among the geeks and regular gamers alike when it came out in 1980. Developed by Tōru Iwatani for Namco, it was originally known as ‘Puck-Man’. It caught the attention of an arcade gaming company called Midway, which brought it over in the US. The name obviously had to be changed, since the company feared kids might deface a Puck-Man cabinet by changing the ‘P’ to an ‘F’. In the game, the player controls and guides the ever-hungry Pac-Man through a maze, who likes to devour pac-dots or pellets. When all dots have been consumed, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage. Four blob-like enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. If an enemy touches Pac-Man, a life is lost. When all lives have been lost, the game ends. Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history and is among the most famous arcade games of all time. Made in just one year back in the 80s, it is also the highest-grossing video game of all time, having generated more than $2.5 billion in quarters by the 1990s!

Kids who were able to get their hands on an Atari console in the ’80s, however, would remember ‘Pong’ as being perhaps the first real ‘game’ they played. Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. Inspired by the game of table tennis, it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. So surprised was Atari by the quality of Alcorn’s work that they decided to manufacture the game. One of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity, Pong has the player controlling an in-game paddle by moving it vertically across the left side of the screen to hit a ball back and forth. One could compete against either a computer controlled opponent or another player controlling a second paddle on the opposing side.

When one is talking of old school games, no discussion is complete without a mention of Mario. Created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo, it serves as the company’s mascot to this day. The tiny, chubby, Italian-American plumber who lives in the happy and often dangerous Mushroom Kingdom is said to be the most famous character in video game history. The Mario franchise is the best-selling video game franchise of all time, selling more than 210 million units! The player in the game is repeatedly made to stop the antagonist known as Browser or King Koopa’s various plans to kidnap Princess Peach, destroy him and take over the kingdom.

Originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union, Tetris was released on June 6, 1984. Now here’s a game that’s loved and adored by people of all ages. Pajitnov derived the puzzle-based game’s name from the Greek numerical prefix tetra- (since every piece in the game contains four segments) and tennis, his favourite sport. Tetris was the first entertainment software to be exported from the USSR to the US and was published by Spectrum Holobyte for IBM PC and Commodore 64. This is the only game that is available for nearly every video game console and computer operating system, as well as on various other devices such as graphing calculators, mobile phones, portable media players, PDAs, even network music players! Considered by many to be ‘greatest game of all time’, it has sold more than 70 million copies!

Another Atari game that became a huge hit when it came out was the famous Arkanoid. Developed by the Taito Corporation in 1986, it has the player controlling a space vessel known as the ‘Vaus’. This acts as the game’s ‘paddle’ which prevents a ball from falling from the playing field, attempting to bounce and hurl it towards a number of bricks. The ball striking a brick causes the brick to disappear. When all the bricks are gone, the player goes to the next level, where another pattern of bricks appears. Even though the game got cloned numerous times, to this day, its popularity is unmatched. It’s now available on the new high-end consoles such as Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. In 2009, there was even an iPhone version launched of the same.

aazaranis@mydigitalfc.com