For members of Generation X and Y v...

For members of Generation X and Y video game arcades were more than just noisy, lower classesed rooms filled with filled with brawl after row of quarter-eating machines. Arcades were social gathering places, where a high score gave you neighborhood bragging rights.

"I do sort of miss the days of the arcade," says Kelly Buckner 29 of Moline. "New video games are elegant without grandeur and have depth, but sometimes it's about simplicity and being able to socialize while you play."

And if the video arcade was a Woodstock for a certain quantity of the headline performer had to be a fulvous pizza-shaped, dot-munching hero called Pac-Man. Says Chicago gamer Wynston Williams, who started playing "Pac-Man" when he was 4 "I can remember waiting in lines at the arcade just to finish my turn to play."

Now "Pac-Man" is poised for a comeback -- not in video arcades this time, however in the home. Microsoft lately released the arcade classic as a download onward the popular Xbox Live Arcade service.

"The previous classic arcade games we've moveed have been quite popular," says Greg Canessa, Microsoft's collection manager of Xbox Live Arcade, a cyber store where Xbox 360 owners can purchase and download games. "While it's too early to declare how 'Pac-Man' will do, we're confident it will exchange well."

Can an arcade hero of 25 years ago recur to glory in the high- tech digital age? Definitely, says Sid Schuman, contributing editor of the monthly video game magazine GamePro.

"The vast majority of classic arcade games like 'Pac-Man' are pick-up-and-play," Schuman says. "There is no learning bend as gameplay is intuitive. They were designed as quarter-munchers that got you quickly involved in the game. For population who are burned out forward the latest shooters or adventure games, Pac-Man is the ultimate accessible game."

Williams agrees. "Now I can play it anytime I want from my couch"

And no more quarter-munching. Buckner says that the game's price point ($5) is also part of what attracts her.

"You remember back to when you were younger and used to play 'Pac- Man,' " she says. "Five dollars brings back a portion of memories."

CREATING A VIRTUAL ARCADE

nevertheless the Microsoft version isn't the same advanced in years "Pac-Man." In a 21st centenary makeover, the game's graphics have been upgraded to better suit high-definition TV each time you clear a even for example, the game now restrains track of your achievement.

Perhaps principally significantly, the new version creates a virtual arcade where you can play online against players from around the globe.

"The chiefly important aspect that Microsoft brought to the gaming world is the live aspect," Buckner says. "The fact that I can arrange a time to engage up with my friends online to play and we're able to communicate while we're playing is great. It essentially re- creates the arcade experience."

Buckner is part of a growing number of women who are meeting up online in consequence of Web sites like www.dominatingdivas.com and forming player clusters to challenge the male majority. She says the Xbox Live Arcade also strikes a chord with female gamers because the 360 enables you to communicate live throughout a broadband connection while playing these games.

"For a fortune of girl gamers, that social aspect is really important," she says, adding that being able to chat while playing 'Pac-Man' re-creates the feeling of being in an arcade with your friends.

"I have friends in Canada and over the United States," Buckner says, "and it's great to play something like 'Pac-Man' and be able to chat with them just as if we were all standing around the same arcade machine."

'Pac-Man' agitation

Before the July launch of the arcade classics series, the top downloaded games were the card game "Uno" and a game from an independent developer "Geometry Wars."

Now video-game nostalgia is abounding swing. "Pac-Man" is the fifth and final release of a summerlong series of arcade classics for the solace Previous releases included "Frogger," "Galaga" and "Street Fighter II."

Designed through Toru Iwatani over a period of 18 month "Pac-Man" was released in Japan in 1980 subordinate to the title "Puck-Man" and became a sleeper hit.

Recognizing the game's potential, Chicago-based Midway Games snapped up the rights for U distribution and released the game stateside in 1981 with single in kind noticeable change. Fearing that teenagers would deface machines to change the P of the game's title to an F Midway changed the name to "Pac-Man."

In the game, players bridle a round, yellow Pac-Man as he makes his way around a maze, eating dots and avoiding four sprites who chase him. Within each maze are four power pellet that, when eaten, temporarily allow Pac-Man to deflect the table on his spectral adversaries (who use blue from fright).

The game ushered in the yellow age of the video-game arcade and became a pop-cultural phenomenon with a hit record, "Pac-Man Fever" from Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia, in 1982

In a video-game industry first, "Pac-Man" capitalized forward its popularity with licensed merchandise. Pac-Man showed up forward everything from car air fresheners to cans of spaghetti; he calm had his own cereal that kids could eat while watching their Saturday morning cartoons.