Pac Man World Championships: An Inside Report

[feilong801]

Thought you guys would like some information about this.

One of my good friends recently participated in the Microsoft held Pac Man world championships last week. His Xbox Live alias is jbob007. He qualified for the tourney with 2,500,000 score (they removed the "perfect score" element of the game for the initial qualifier round on Xbox Live, so you can go past the 990,000 limit). The qualifiers then went to New York City to compete (this was a worldwide event, so the ten contestants consisted of qualifiers from every Xbox Live supported region of the world, with Billy Mitchell as the last qualifier, sort of a "sponsers exemption" if you follow).

So how did my friend do? Pretty respectable. He finished fourth (out of ten). Including p0wning Mr. Pac Man himself, Billy Mitchell (jbob even reported that Mitchell was cheering him on with chants of USA! USA!).

However, what is being left out of most of the reports of the event is this: Microsoft did a major switcheroo to these guys. Instead of having the tournament use, well, you know, PAC MAN, they instead had everyone play the much different new Xbox Live Pac Man that Microsoft released last week. So, of course, the question of who is the best Pac Man player in the world was totally unsettled.

My buddy is cool with this, seeing as Microsoft flew him to New York City, put him in a really nice hotel, and then awarded him $1000 bucks for finishing fourth! Yet It is unfortunate that, once again, there was an ulterior motive all along here, and that motive had to interfere with what could have been an amazing tournament.

Incidentally, the Mexican representative won the tourney. I think one of the European guys finished second.

-Rob

[JasonhasRSI1]

Just so I'm clear - the qualifier was played on XBL, correct? Doesn't sound terribly surprising (nor that horrifying) that they would use the same game to determine the winner. Pretty much any video game contest of any sort is organized for the sole purpose of the sponsor making money.

That said, it does sound like it would have been cool if the competition was played using the old pizzera table top pac man cabinets. Complete with greasy joysticks.

[ActRaiser1]

Have you checked out the updated version of Pac-Man on the 360?  It's pretty fun.  I'm really tempted to throw the $10 for it.  What does everyone else say?

[feilong801]

[QUOTE=JasonhasRSI]Just so I'm clear - the qualifier was played on XBL, correct? Doesn't sound terribly surprising (nor that horrifying) that they would use the same game to determine the winner. Pretty much any video game contest of any sort is organized for the sole purpose of the sponsor making money.

That said, it does sound like it would have been cool if the competition was played using the old pizzera table top pac man cabinets. Complete with greasy joysticks.

[/QUOTE]

Nope, you misunderstood me. Yeah, the qualifier was played using the Xbox Live Arcade version of the original Pac Man, which, while I'm sure there are some emulation issues or whatever, is more or less a decent representation of the original. The tournament in New York City was played using the brand new Pac Man game which was released last week. This game is Pac Man esque but is of course way different than the original, meaning the contest winners only really proved that they could do well in a game they were not familiar with versus other highly skilled gamers, not who was truly the best Pac Man player.


Sorry if I wasn't clear in the OP.

-Rob

[JasonhasRSI1]

Ah I see. That known, my comment about using the pizza parlor games still applies.