25 essential video games every gamer should know

3. Pac-Man

This classic arcade game is one of the most iconic games of all time. With a whole slew of spin-offs, including some story driven platformers, you’d be hard pressed to find any gamer who hasn’t played this game at least once. Pac-Man, Mrs. Pac-Man, and the four Ghost villains, Pinky, Blinky, Inky, and Clyde are such cultural icons that their likeness can be found in every entertainment genre. There have been animated TV series, film references, songs, merchandise and more.

Players move Pac-Man through a maze in order to collect all the dots on the map and avoid the ghosts that will chase Pac-Man. There are four larger pellets on the map called Power Pellets that will make all the ghost turn blue, run away from Pac-Man, and become edible for a short time. If Pac-Man eats one of the blue ghosts, they’ll return to the center of the map and respawn as a normal ghost. Additionally, sometimes fruit will show up that can be eaten for bonus points.

The game was initially called Puck Man in Japan, but the name was changed when it was brought to America for fear of how arcade cabinets could be vandalized. The original game had 256 levels of gameplay as that was all that would fit on the memory. However, if players got to level 256, only half of the playing area would load, the other half showing jumbled letters instead.