Pac-Man hits 30 without losing its way http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/22/AR2010052200254.html Happy birthday, Pac-Man http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Happy+birthday/3060421/story.html Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/05/pac-man-30-years/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29 Pacman 30th Anniversary [Flash Player] http://pacman.com/en/ The Video Game Revolution [Flash Player] http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/history/index.html Video Game Music Archive http://www.vgmusic.com/ 30 years ago, most video games were basically shoot-em-ups or focused on some type of sports contest. All of that changed dramatically with the introduction of a yellow pie-shaped character that moved around a screen consuming tiny dots. Quite literally, Pac-Man was a game-changer, and this little guy found his way into popular culture quickly. He even climbed up the pop-music charts in the winter of 1982 as the subject of the song "Pac-Man Fever". Since its introduction in 1980, more than 10 billion games of Pac-Man have been played from Tokyo to Tangier. The game remains quite popular, despite the increasingly crowded video-game market, which now includes games designed specifically for mobile phones and other devices. Interestingly, the game was also fashioned to appeal to women, a group that been largely ignored by video game designers up to that point. In a recent interview, Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani, commented on the inspiration for the game, remarking, "Pac-Man is inspired by all the manga and animation that I'd watch as a kid. The ghosts were inspired by Casper, or Obake no Q-Taro. The game idea - eating a power cookie and powering up to defeat the ghost - was inspired by Popeye eating spinach and defeating Bluto, turning the tables on him." The first link will take users to a Washington Post article from this Sunday which talks about the origins of Pacman and its continued success over the past three decades. The second link leads to an article from the Vancouver Sun that discusses the enduring popularity and marketing of the game. Moving on, the third link leads to an interview with Toru Iwatani, courtesy of Wired. The fourth link leads to the official Pac-Man 30th Anniversary website, which contains Pac-Man art, contests, videos, and some fun downloads. The fifth link leads to the companion website for the Video Game Revolution documentary from PBS. Here visitors can view an interactive timeline and take a look at some classic games from decades past. The last link leads to the Video Game Music Archive, which contains over 30,000 music clips taken from hundreds of video games from systems like the Amiga 500 and the legendary Super Nintendo.