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Friday, August 22, 2008

The First Lady of Video Games

I’ve previously noted how Google searches for “world’s largest suppository” and “opalescent dragon” turned up less interesting results than I hoped for. I have a new one today, and one that I’m a little more disappointed to present: Google does not seem to have a definite answer to my query of “first female video game character.”

I’d always thought it was Ms. Pac-Man, but I’ve never been sure. Her Wikipedia page makes no mention of it, though that might be because it’s actually for the game Ms. Pac-Man and not the character herself. This blog and this video game character fan site posit that the one to hold this title is, in fact, the be-bowed female counterpart to Pac-Man. (She’s not necessarily his wife, hence the “Ms.”). However, Google also little else. (Some results posit Street Fighter II’s Chun-Li or Metroid’s Samus, though I’m sure neither is the first.) And searching for the phrase sans quotation marks turns up little else of interest. (Results range from a list of non-overly sexualized video game heroines to a profile of Chrono Trigger’s prominent tranny character Flea to, inexplicably, a rundown of various body types of male video game heartthrobs.)

image from hefnatron.com

So it is Ms. Pac-Man, right? Hopefully some other soul with nothing better to do but to Google this will now come across this page and correct me if I’m wrong.

Pac-Man, previously on Back of the Cereal Box:

1 comment:

  1. Ms. Pac-Man came out the same year as Donkey Kong. Don't know what month, though. If Donkey Kong came out first, though, then Pauline would have been the first character.

    Of course, Pauline didn't really do anything, and Ms. Pac-Man was the main character.

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