Pac-Man
Introduction
Inspired over a lunch of pizza, Pac-Man began life in the arcades in 1980. After being overlooked by "experts" who judged Namco's Rally-X to be the better of the two games, Pac-Man went on to unprecedented success and became an icon in Japan and in America. Pac-Man's game play was a stark and refreshing contrast to the space aged shoot'em ups that were popular at the time. Pac-mania became a phenomenon and video games' first mascot was met with an insatiable demand.
Atari snapped up the rights to bring the arcade hit home, and let down millions of fans with a sub-par conversion on Atari's most popular home system, the Atari 2600. However, they did produce a far better conversion for their home computer systems and the Atari 5200 (if you can overlook the controls.) From there, Pac-Man has gone on to grace just about every system that has ever been manufactured in some form or another.
While Pac-Man's popularity has died down today in comparison to the early 80s, he is still a recognizable figure, and has appeared on just about every form of merchandising available. His legacy continues on the latest generation platforms with ever expanding adventures, and while they capture the good natured quality of our little yellow hero, they can never outshine the accomplishment of the original game.
Story
Actually, there's not much of a story at all. Despite Pac-Man's popularity, an official explination as to why Pac-Man had to run through a maze and gobble all of the dots and avoid the ghosts, has never been provided. Feel free to make up your own.
