Tohru Iwatani
Pacman

LA RECENSIONE

I wouldn't have had anything better to do tonight. A nice cigarette resting on the corner of the table, preferably a Pall Mall Blue, a lighter always within reach and in the total darkness of night, the screen of the television lights up with my beautiful Playstation emulator.

Old games are light years ahead of new ones. It's a matter of mentality, of political history. Of intellectual bombardments much more substantial than those of today. Even a simple game like Pacman, therefore, can have the peculiarity of overturning the class.

It's quite cold, to be honest, but the hands warm up tapping the buttons on the joypad. And the mind works, fervently, trying to figure out where to start the path with that little yellow ball. Which then decreases in diameter to form the mouth. Fascinating.

There are those multicolored monsters that seem about to tell me: "You shall not pass, jerk, this is my turf". How to outsmart them in five seconds.

So, I won't turn here because then it cuts in and tricks me, so I keep advancing to get ahead of it.

A thousand strategies for Pacman, who knows which is the right one. There isn't a precise rule, the important thing is not to plunge headfirst. All the pellets must be collected, Hansel must gather all the crumbs to reach the destination.

Obviously the bonus is a must. There is a nice cherry that disappears sooner or later to grab, better hurry: an additional level of difficulty.

Pacman seems simple, or rather it is simple in structure, in video configuration. But it's a game that engages the brain, decision speed, the fervor and strength to reach the goal. And the voracity to eat the monsters when you take the bigger pellet.

Then, why do those monsters, once eaten, never die?