Wendy’s has always been my favorite fast food joint, and they’ve solidified this status with their new Kids’ Meal toys featuring Pac-Man.
Namco Bandai has partnered with Wendy’s and created five different promotional Pac-Man items to celebrate Pac-Man’s 30 year anniversary as well as the release of “Pac-Man Party” for the Wii:
- PAC-MAN Maze Craze
- PAC-MAN Tag Game
- PAC-MAN Hide and Seek
- PAC-MAN Dash Game
- PAC-MAN Bowling
Not all of these are games per se. The Tag game looks to be simply key chains of the different ghosts and of course Pac-Man and the Bowling game seems like a windup Pac-Man toy with paper ghosts. While there currently aren’t any lists for all the mini-games in “Pac-Man Party” we’re guessing that these Kids’ Meals toys have some kind of correlation to the game. The actual game was released November 16, 2010 and while it didn’t get great reviews, still kept Pac-Man alive. The Wii game also features the original “Pac-Man” arcade game, “Galaga” and “Dig-Dug.”
Like the console game, these tabletop Kids’ Meals game, besides the maze, don’t do much to really show kids what Pac-Man was really all about. Still, there’s something to be said about appealing to children over the span of three decades. While Mario might have changed very little over the course of his lifespan, his world was a fairly realized galaxy. Pac-Man, on the other hand, was simply a yellow dot on screen eating smaller dots and either running from or towards ghosts. The fact that it has lived on into newer consoles is an achievement in itself. This Kids’ Meals toys and console game does a lot to solidify Pac-Man’s place in the gaming hall of fame and might get some grown ups to purchase a Wendy’s Kids’ Meal.
If you like this, you might also like: Original Pac-Man Arcade, Pac-Man’s Life Lessons and Celebrate 30 Years of Pac-Man with Moleskine Pac.
Via: Gaming Bits and Flickr
