Here’s a brilliant little slice of awesome to start your day with. Pac-Man, one of the world’s most enduringly popular video game characters, is the star of a newly launched HTML5-powered in-browser game, The World’s Biggest Pac-Man. The round, yellow pellet-chomper already has a home at Google, but this new website takes him to another level entirely.
Created by Soap Interactive in conjunction with Microsoft and license-holder Namco Bandai, The World’s Biggest Pac-Man offers hundreds of user-created levels to chomp through along with Facebook integration, all pulled together in an incredibly slick interface that works like the Google Maps of Pac-Man levels. It was launched at Microsoft’s MIX11 developer’s conference to promote the company’s recently released Internet Explorer 9.
For a (sad) laugh, iPad owners that have Atomic Web Browser — levels won’t even load in Mobile Safari — should pick out a level and tap Play For Fun. There are no arrow keys on the Apple tablet’s keyboard and the HTML5 code runs at a crawl, so you can do nothing but watch as Pac-Man is consumed in slow motion by one of the multi-colored ghosts.
In addition to offering actual Pac-Man maps to build and play on, the site also lists a range of stats. How many levels have been created (1,419), how many pellets eaten (20,199,597), how many ghosts (219,893) and more. There’s also a country-by-country breakdown, with Spain currently holding a commanding lead over the United States in the number two spot. Watch your back, Spain. We’re coming for you.
