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My oh my, what this world has come to.
20 years ago, playing games meant being a nerd that stayed home alot, hunched over either a D&D board, an adventure book, or infront of the telly all alone in your room, saving some pixel in distress from another pixel on the loose. Bliss. Those were the days of typing tons of code from a magazine just to have your mum pull the plug on the computer cos it was time for tea. It was the time when things were 2D, and alot more simple.
That's why I love retro gaming. I can play r-type again and again and again, but just can't replay any new games. Don't get me wrong, 3D rocks, the FPS is a great genre, and action adventures never looked any better. Doom 3 and Half Life 2 changed the world forever, but still, nothing beats jumping up and down a 2D hill with your favourite mascot, or running across a desert with a commando and his trusty machine gun.
Then ofcourse came PlayStation. Dragging us gamers out from the dens, screaming and kicking into the daylight (damn that sun!) and the whole public found us out! Not only were we playing, but so was every Tom, Dick, Harry and their wives/sisters/grandparents... Sigh
Why the rant then? Well, cos some clever person has taken the idea of retro gaming WAAAAAAY to far for my taste. I'll explain
Pacmanhattan is a real-life pacman game. Players dress up as either pac himself or one of the ghosts, and run around a block in Manhattan. Connected via WiFi, mobile, and GPS with their "controller", they update him where they are and he in turn updates a custom made pacman program. This way, pac eats all the dots while the ghosts try to hunt him down (the ghost controllers and pac's controllers see the same game screen). If pacman eats a power pellet, his controller gets to see where the ghosts are and pac has 2 minutes to go and "eat them".
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure whether this is good or bad for the image of gaming. It might be a cool and bold idea, but imagine watching weirdos dressed as videogame characters running around your local high street..... Have a look at the site, watch the videos and look at the pics, then make up your own mind.
As for me, I'm off to play some MAME games.

See ya when I next find a mad http again, G-D

PS: Play DanDaDan!