Buckner and Garcia - Pac Man Fever
January 1982
Buckner and Garcia
Pac Man Fever
Genre: Novelty
1.5 out of 5
I loved the game Defender. Every Saturday in the summer, my friend Pete and I would leave work, take a roll of quarters each to Paul’s Pizza on Cottage Street, buy a pie and play all afternoon. It’s the most complex console game I’ve ever played. I got blisters from the joystick and I always ended up blowing up the planet and getting killed in space.
And then, in 2008, I found one in an arcade in Big Bear. And this happened:
A few years ago Beth and I were in Big Bear and hit the arcade and I dropped about 3 bucks in the game, once again, never getting more than 50K.
2 months ago I was at a production company where they have the game in their lobby. It's free. I got killed before I got one extra ship.
I suck.
Then we walked into this arcade in Big Bear again. I put four quarters on the machine and started.
I cracked 50,000 and ran out of smart bombs. Then I lost my spacemen and I was in outer space, where it is all frenzied mutants and pods and it's impossible to survive, at least for me.
Something odd happened this time, though.
I survived space.
I got back to the planet.
I broke 100,000 points.
200,000.
If I could just get, 300,000 that would be cool, I thought.
Then 3, 4, and half a million points.
Beth was ready to go. Ready to GO!?!?!? Are you crazy????? Don't you see what's happening here? My thumb and last two fingers on my joystick hand are blistered and bleeding. Dare I hope? Do I dream of a million?
I've never gotten more than three screens on ANY video game!
Then it happened.
994,000...996,000...998,000.....
And the game turned over.
One million.
Back to zero.
After that I just tried to die so I could put my name in.
I had 25 smart bombs and 40 ships. I could have played all day. I was in the zone.
I saved the fucking galaxy and achieved a lifetime dream.
I'm a geek, yes, but a geek who turned Defender over, fuckers!
From my blog in 2008.
I had no idea there was a song about Defender in this game. Which is just repeating “I’m a Defender” with varietals on that theme throughout. What a piece of hot trash.
The songs sound like they were written by jingle writers and that’s exactly what they were. Jingle men trying to build up their business and ended up with a cash cow hit. I listened to the commentary version of this song. Which is kind of great because each song is followed by a commentary version. I’ve never heard anything like that.
Look, nothing is very good here but, listening to a musician’s process is always fascinating to me. In other words, I listened to a bad album twice because that made the whole experience better.
Another thing: Every song sounds like it’s ripping some other, more popular track of the day. This is a bad record.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/pac-man-fever-30-year-anniversary/516949603
