Namco Bandai Games have revealed that Hirokazu Yasuhara, co-creator/level designer of the original Sonic the Hedgehog series, is working on a Pac-Man ‘comeback’ game, due for release on the character’s 30th Anniversary in 2010.
American EVP and COO Makato Iwai mentioned the details to gaming website Gamasutra, where they plan to use the game designer to bring about a full return to form for the ghost-eating yellow blob. “As a group, we feel like we should do something to make him come back. So, there’s one project that we started working on, and [Yasuhara is] part of it.”
Yasuhara has recently expressed his desire to create a new character action game, saying that such platforming games have a chance of becoming popular again. Iwai said to Gamasutra how working on Pac-Man is “sort of meeting his wish 100 percent, in a sense.”
Before recently joining NBGA as Senior Game Designer, Yasuhara worked for Naughty Dog on projects such as Uncharted. His claim to fame came as one of the ‘original trio’ of developers that helped establish Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive. His last involvement in the series was the Saturn racer, Sonic R.
With his impressive philosophies on game design and his awesome track record on platforming games (Sonic and beyond), it would have been cool to have seen him try his hand at reworking Sonic the Hedgehog instead of Pac-Man. Either way, it’s good to hear the man continuing to do what he loves – and Pac-Man’s 3D games have been considerably poorer than Sonic’s so if any character needs the help it’s the Pac.
Namco’s Iwai: Sonic Co-Creator Working On Pac-Man Comeback Game – Gamasutra (via Kotaku)
sounds ok
Better it’s someone like Pac-Man than some ‘orrible newfangled PS3 franchise.
Wait a second…Ratchet and Clank belongs to Insomniac Games…Was he part of the group that ND sent over to Insomniac to help with the game engine?
@Anon: Thanks for reminding me, that WAS Insomniac and not Naughty Dog… doi me. XP Edited.
Sounds good to me 😀
“Pac-Man’s 3D games have been considerably poorer than Sonic’s”
Sorry Svend, I have to disagree. Even though they’re not perfect, the Pac-Man World games are solid little platformers. Love 2 & 3, great fun.
Not sure what more they can do to an arcade game as good as it is already.
“His last project with SEGA was the Saturn racer, Sonic R.”
Not quite, that was his last Sonic game (which he almost didn’t work on until the craptastic reactions to the course layouts at E3 ’97 prompted his recruitment), but he was still at Sega of America until 2002 at the latest. Exactly what he did in that dull period is a little hard to place…Ooga Booga and Floigan Bros. seem to turn up with his name, I think.
@ Sonicyoda: Hey, to each their own! 🙂 I’m comparing the World games with the Sonic Adventure ones though, so… XD
@FlashTHD: Good call, thanks for the correction.
i played pac-man world 1 and 2 and both are mario copies
and sonic andventure 1 and 2 arew surley better than that
I smell a 3way crossover of Mario , Sonic & Pac-Man coming … or not but it would be awesome to see Mario & Sonic team up with the god of video games maybe some day Triforce (Nintendo , Sega , & Namco) will do a Mario/Sonic/Pac Man adventure game
ah. thats different. (plus I DO NOT know this guy already)