While other E3 exhibitors look to out-do each other by creating the biggest, best, and newest action adventures for the 1990s, two 1980s heavyweights are making a splashy return to the digital screen. Pac-Man and Frogger are both being recreated as glorious 3-D action adventures for a whole new generation of gamers. But not everyone thinks they should be resurrected.
"I think the retro-gamers are sick of Pac-Man, so there will need to be a serious hook to draw in modern players," comments James Hague, author of Halcyon Days, a book of interviews that explores the lives and motivations of designers of classic videogames. "The more recent Pac-Man games have only borrowed the name and don't have anything to do with the maze game that people were obsessed with."
After languishing quietly in outdated Gameboys and lackluster spinoffs for the past 10 years since its '80s heyday, Pac-Man is being remade as a flashily rendered PlayStation 3-D game called Pac-Man Ghost Zone. Namco spokesman Mike Fischer says of the November release: "He does a lot more than just eat dots."
Cloyingly self-referential, the game starts when a boy gets sucked into an old Pac-Man arcade game and is sent on a mission to save the original Pac-Man, who has been taken hostage by ghosts. It looks just like every other heavily rendered game on the Electronic Entertainment Expo floor in Atlanta this week - but with a vaguely familiar face. The game comes complete with those edible dots and that wacka-wacka sound effect, but also includes 14 worlds (such as a "gumball roller coaster") and new ways to battle the ghosts - essentially turning a puzzle game into an action adventure.
This isn't the first time that Namco has tapped its '80s icon for retro appeal: A slew of Pac-Man sequels and adaptations for console games have trickled out over the years, as has Namco's rerelease last year of the original game as a "vintage package." None were big hits.
Frogger is having a similar reincarnation - the simple "jump or get squashed" game that sold more than 5.5 million copies before disappearing from the shelves in 1984 is being revived by Hasbro as a PC game. It too is getting a '90s update - 3-D graphics, more than 50 worlds, and new features like the "sonic croak" and "super jump." For those old-timers, they've also included an emulation of the original arcade game, hidden as an easter egg, plus the original soundtrack. And in the ultimate '90s gaming twist, it will be networked, made multi-player, and put on Microsoft's zone.com.
"It has one of the most addicting play patterns of all time," says Chris Downs, product manager for Frogger. "Huge retro appeal."
And not only do they figure that retro appeal will draw in old-timers, but they are also counting on addicting a whole new generation of kids, as shown by the immense E3 displays, which are heavy on cute foam frogs and kid-friendly colors. Tom Dusenberry, president of Hasbro Interactive, said the game has also been tested as appealing heavily to both genders - a hot ticket right now. Hasbro plans to ship 1 million units.
"In the 1980s the technology was so limiting that they had to make great games," explains Dusenberry. "Now with the multimedia technology they've forgotten the gameplay. This gives up the opportunity to include both great gameplay and graphics."
Will players respond to a three-dimensional Pac-Man? J. C. Herz, author of Joystick Nation, a videogame history, isn't so sure. "It turns out that players actually identify more with the blocky, primitive symbolic characters - glorified cursors, really - than with these 3-D polygon action figures," she writes in an email. "I think Pac-Man's simplicity is his greatest virtue. Once you start elaborating, it becomes a different kind of experience."
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