Items tagged with Pac-Man
Sometimes you have to step back and not take life so serious, as challenging as that might be with everything going on these days. In an effort to help, Google is providing a "bit of escapism" by injecting pop culture characters into its search service, brought to virtual life on your smartphone or tablet through the wonders of augmented reality. It's a silly little thing, but we all need a little bit of silliness from time to time, don't we? To that end, Google is focusing on a handful of characters from classic Japanese anime, games, and TV shows. Characters that are viewable in AR include Evangelion, Hello Kitty, Gomora, Gundam, Pac-Man (shown above), and Ultraman. "Now, you can have these...
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Battle Royale games are some of the most popular out there right now, with popular titles such as Fortnite and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Since these games came out, companies have been trying to twist the genre, and Nintendo is the latest to shake things up. In the new Pac-Man 99, players can show off their “chomping chops” against up to 99 other players simultaneously. When you think of the typical battle royale game, you may think of all the players being in the same lobby and competing in the same location. With Pac-Man 99, however, players play on their Pac-Man maze while trying to mess up opponents via power-ups and be the last Pac-Man standing. You can see how...
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While anyone could say a good movie, book, or video game made them feel emotional, scientists did not understand why until now. A research team at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, found that emotions result from the synchronization of several neural systems throughout the brain. They found this out by analyzing volunteers' "feelings, expressions, and physiological responses" while playing a video game designed for arousing different emotions depending on the game's progress. As the University of Geneva press release explains, "Emotions are complex phenomena that influence our minds, bodies, and behavior." This complexity makes emotions challenging to understand and study. Previously, theories...
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Billy Mitchell is perhaps the most polarizing figure in the history of arcade gaming, particularly as a sport where legitimately obtained high scores on original cabinet hardware carries with it a bit of fame and recognition. And in some cases, a bit of controversy as well. Adding to it, Guinness World Records has reinstated several records that were previously stripped from Mitchell. "In the light of compelling new evidence received by Guinness World Records, the Records Management Team has unanimously decided to reverse decisions made in April 2018 in regards to videogame high scores achieved by Billy Mitchell between 1982 and 2010," Guinness said. Those records include... First perfect score...
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One of the first arcade games you may remember playing on an Atari 2600, what seems like a million years ago, was Pac-Man. However, this was not exactly a faithful recreation of the true classic co-op arcade version. Now, several decades later, NVIDIA trained an AI model called GameGAN to recreate a proper recreation, and what makes this so interesting is that there is no underlying game engine, whatsoever. These days, the original Pac-Man arcade game is easy enough to recreate on virtually any modern platform, though this approach with NVIDIA machine learning is unique and far more challenging. GameGAN did not have the benefit of being programmed with the game's fundamental rules or...
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Anyone who falls into the "if it's free, it's for me crowd" will want to hop over to Steam, the Microsoft Store or the PlayStation Store and grab this sweet retro reboot game for free, that usually sells for $12.99. The game is Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, and it launched in September 2016. The game is available for Xbox, PS4 gamers and PC gamers at no cost from today through May 10, according to the PlayStation Store. On Steam, the game doesn't have the best reviews, with recent reviews being mostly negative and overall reviews being mixed. That said, you really can't complain when a game is free, and anyone who remembers playing Pac-Man in the arcade back in the day should want to give this...
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For April Fool’s Day, Google turned its popular Maps navigation program into a playable version of Ms. Pac-Man, transforming your local city streets (or any collection of streets around the globe) into a ghost-chasing playground. While that was a nice break from the norm for the traditionally staid Maps application, Microsoft is taking a completely different approach with Ms. Pac-Man. It all starts with Maluuba, which is a deep learning startup that Microsoft acquired earlier this year. Using the company’s reinforcement learning algorithms, it was able to teach AI how to thoroughly master the Atari 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man. We’re not talking about "simply" getting a score of a few hundred...
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The gaming community has lost a legend. Masaya Nakamura, founder of Namco and pioneer of arcade hits such as Pac-Man, one of the most iconic characters in the history of gaming, passed away at the age of 91. Namco-Bandi recorded his death as having occurred on Wednesday, January 22, though decided to wait until today before issuing a press release (PDF) on its Japanese-language website.Nakamura served as an engineer in the Japanese Navy before founding Nakamura Manufacturing in 1955. He started off with two mechanical horses that he purchased for $3,000, while renting space on the roof of a department store. He serviced and ran the rides himself.As his business grew, he renamed the company Nakamura...
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Facebook Messenger is no stranger to casual gaming. Over the past year, we’ve seen mini basketball, soccer and even chess games. But now, Facebook is stepping into the [retro] big leagues by adding support for full-fledged games, including classics like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Facebook announced this new gaming platform for Messenger today under the Instant Games initiative. Accessing these games is as simple as opening a conversation and tapping on the game controller icon that shows up in within the Messenger app. From there, you will be able to discover new games and waste time away tapping on the screen to achieve the highest score in Arkanoid or Galaga. “After you finish a round, people...
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You have our utmost respect if you've ever run into the "Map 256 Glitch" in Pac-Man. The show stopping bug thwarted even the best Pac-Man players with an impossible to beat level, and it's also the theme of Bandai Namco's newest Pac-Man title -- yes, another Pac-Man game! -- Pac-Man 256 available for iOS, Android, and Amazon devices. Let's back up a moment. Also known as the split-screen level or kill screen, the Map 256 Glitch occurred when Pac-Man players made it to level 256. At issue is the level counter being stored as an 8-bit integer, so it could only store 256 values (0-255), with the highest value possible being 255. Reaching level 256 in Pac-Man would cause an integer overflow and,...
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Pac-Man has officially been recognized as one of the most important video games of all time. Such is the insinuation from being one of only half a dozen titles inducted into The Strong's inaugural World Video Game Hall of Fame, which includes a collection of titles that span multiple decades, countries of origin, and gaming platforms.What they all have in common is that they each "significantly affected the video game industry, popular culture, and society in general." Based on those merits, it's hard to argue against the inclusion of Pac-Man, a game that debuted 35 years ago and is one of the stars in the upcoming Pixels movie starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James.The other four inductees include...
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Leave it to Google to turn something as mundane as maps into something that’s actually interesting. For a limited time, the search giant is turning some real-world locations into a prime playing grounds for a round of the 1980s game Pac-Man. You can call up Google Maps either in your computer’s web browser or by using the corresponding apps on iOS or Android to start playing Pac-Man. Although you can play the game using any address that you input into Google Maps, Google has provided a few “hints” for other locations that you can try out around the globe, such as: How well can you navigate the radiating streets of the distrito federal?Previous PAC-MAN lives don't get to rest in a white marble...
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Nintendo unveiled its second-generation Wii console today, dubbed the Wii U, but said very little about the console's specifications. The company confirmed that the new system will support HD video, but devoted its press conference to discussing the Wii U's controller. Rumors that Nintendo would incorporate a touchscreen proved accurate, but the controller is more tablet-based than we expected it to be. The display is 6.2" wide and features dual analog controllers, two shoulder buttons, and a standard four-button layout to the right. One of the intriguing features of the Wii U is that titles can be transferred from the TV to the controller's display without needing to restart the game. This frees...
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