Get me my cane...

[Son of Enik]

I cannot believe that "The Empire Strikes Back" and Pac Man are 30 years old this weekend. I still remember when they first came out. I saw "Empire" on opening night at the drive-in on a double bill with "Meatballs". My first encounter with Pac Man was at the Wareham House of Pizza when I was 7 years old. Now that I think of it, the drive-in I went to was also in Wareham...for a town I never lived in, a lot of cool things happened for me there. Just makes me feel really old to think that 30 years has passed since then.

 

[ryhoyarbie]

Saw Empire years after it was released. Wasn't born until 81' mind you. Didn't really like it because I thought the movie was moving too slow for my tastes, but that was back when I was young and loved action and fast paced movies. Now, it's the best of the entire 6 movies.

I love Return of the Jedi as a close second. I'm a sucker for the Ewoks.

Played Pacman all the time on the original Atari. Still have the Atari somewhere. It might actually work too.

Anybody have pacman fever?

 

[Yorick]

Nice to hear from one of the few who love Ewoks, like me! As for Empire and PacMan, I love PacMan, and indeed have PacMan Fever

As for Empire, parts of it are amazing (i can only imagine learning FROM THE FILM that Darth Vader is

SPOILER ALERT! :-P

Luke's father! Ha!

Son of Enrik, did you have that experience? Or did someone tell you ahead of time?

 

[Rose]

Pac-Man! Don't get me started on that one. I was obsessed with the game and the character for years when I was little then it was Super Mario I mean ' Jumpman ' I still love those characters and the games.
If I had an Atari to play at home I would still play the thing. The first one I had I had for 20 years when it finally decided to give up on me. I went to turn it on onde day and it didn't turn on. Well it did for like an half hour then POP that was it and I never got another one. That was a pretty good life for a computer game considering I played it for hours on end and had over 50 games for it.
I had a TI Computer as well for about 20 years as old it was I loved playing with it I could do a lot for a simple machine that had no internet access except for some dino modem that you placed your phone receiver on, but the service for that thing was long gone. Every now and again I would try not no server could be found. lol Not surprised.
Not even going to get into DOS. lol

Saw Empire years after it was released. Wasn't born until 81' mind you. Didn't really like it because I thought the movie was moving too slow for my tastes, but that was back when I was young and loved action and fast paced movies. Now, it's the best of the entire 6 movies.

I love Return of the Jedi as a close second. I'm a sucker for the Ewoks.

Played Pacman all the time on the original Atari. Still have the Atari somewhere. It might actually work too.

Anybody have pacman fever?

 

[Son of Enik]

Yorick, no one told me about Lord Vader...so when he uttered that famous line, I looked at my brother and mother and went, "NO WAY!" We actually went to see it again a few weeks later, and then in the summer of 1981 when it was re-released, back before home video. I long for the days of spoiler free movie going, it was a simpler time.

 

[sesameguy]

It's a testament to how influential both "Empire" and "Pac Man" were to us- we remember right where we were when we first encountered them. Some quick thoughts:

1. Even though a friend "spilled the beans" about Darth Vader, I still enjoyed "Empire." But it was also one of the first films I ever saw that didn't have a "happy ending." It was the beginning of understanding that not every movie has to end that way. It's certainly one of the best in the series, and it's easy to understand why the actors themselves love it. We see some incredible dramatic acting from all of the main characters. They really get to show off their skills in "Empire." And with Empire, we begin to realize that Luke's battle isn't just with the Empire or with Darth Vader- it is with himself.

2. I remember seeing the Pac Man video game for the first time and trying to figure out how to play it. Am I this ghost? Am I that ghost? I finally caught on, and it is still one of my favorites to this day. Frankly, I think I'd prefer playing that one than most of the modern video games. Call me "old school," I guess. Pac Man is actually one of the first of the great standalone video games that made "Chuck E. Cheese" and other places fun hangouts. I found myself playing "Google Pac Man" a few times in the past few days. Kind of tricky to have to use those arrow keys, though. Where's that joystick?

Ryhoyarbie, hold on to that Atari if it still works! Ours is long gone, but we still have a few of the games & would love to find one that works.

 

[Drtooth]

Ryhoyarbie, hold on to that Atari if it still works! Ours is long gone, but we still have a few of the games & would love to find one that works.

(Cough) Emulators... Atari Emulators... It wasn't until I used one until I found out exactly how meh Atari really was. There were some good games, but there was also a LOT of garbage. I mean, you need to really read the history of what happened to them, especially in the 80's. Among other things, this was before Nintendo came along and designed a special chip that rejected unlicensed games. While it did give them a Mafioso type presence in the market, it stopped a flood of horrible, cheap, and embarrassing fifth and sixth party games, not to mention bootlegs. Need I mention Custer's Revenge? Don't look it up. If you know about it, you know... and you don't WANT to know.

And those very same bad indie games helped to contribute to the great chip crash in the 80's that almost KILLED video games... at least the part that Atari didn't do themselves. Their Pac-Man and E.T. gone down in history not just as terrible games, but as industry crushing.

 

[sesameguy]

(Cough) Emulators... Atari Emulators... It wasn't until I used one until I found out exactly how meh Atari really was. There were some good games, but there was also a LOT of garbage.

I agree that most old-school Atari games are nothing to crow about- especially compared to the video games of today. But keep in mind that Atari and Intellivision were the "X-boxes" of their time. I laugh when I think about the graphics today, but at the time it was easy to believe that the little green rectangle was actually a tank. Thanks for bringing up the bootleg games, though. That's a side of the story I wasn't aware of. You're right, I don't think I want to know more.

 

[Drtooth]

Reading my entire post, you'd understand what I'm saying. A LOT of unauthorized companies literally polluted the market. And there is a fraction of that which was highly embarrassing pornographic video games. Nintendo brought something to the market years later that ended that.

Not that Atari isn't fun, but the actual original arcade versions of the games they had were leaps and bounds more amazing than the home versions ever where... even for some of the NES recreations. Donkey Kong and Popeye were both pretty truncated when Nintendo made home versions of them.

That said, I could care less about X-Box and the lame shoot'em ups that are oh so popular these days. Pac-Man and Tetris are a million times more fun than they'll ever be. Though, I still say the video game trinity are Mario, Megaman, and Sonic the Hedgehog. All the old ones of each... though, they managed to keep Mario pretty fresh. Sonic's being killed by gimmicky nonsense. Werewolf Sonic? What?

 

[Xerus]

I remember when I first saw Pac Man as a kid, it was at a drugstore. At first I thought it was the safest game where you could eat all the dots and monsters you want and not worry about getting killed. But then I learned that the monsters can only be eaten when they're a nervous blue and that they're dangerous when they're their regular colors.

Pretty soon, Pac Man started appearing everywhere. In arcade games and restaurants and 7-Elevens. And then games like Ms. Pac Man, Baby Pac Man, Super Pac Man, Jr. Pac Man, Pac Man Plus, Pac Land, PacMania, and many more Pac Man spinoffs started to appear and they were all great.

And Hanna-Barbera came out with a Pac Man cartoon series and Buckner and Garcia made a song called Pac Man Fever.