You can finally unleash Pac-Man on the streets you travel every day.
Google has added a Pac-Man button to its Maps website (via Offworld). This enables you to turn any collection of roads into an instant map for the hungry arcade hero. Simply go to maps.google.com and zoom in on some streets until you see the Pac-Man button. Click it, and Google brings up the game interface.
This is, of course, the latest in a long-string of April Fools’ Day gags from Google. The company is known for adding silly and fun features to its products on the first day of April every year.
Two years ago, Google Maps joked about launching an 8-bit version for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Check that out:
Google clearly loves games, as a number of its jokes are related to the medium.
You can still turn Google’s search into a game of Breakout by searching for “Atari Breakout.” Google.com will spin around in a 360 if you type “Do a barrel roll,” which is a reference to the Super Nintendo shooter Star Fox. Searching for “Zerg rush” will cause a surprise attack on the results page, which looks a lot like an move from the game Starcraft.
On the Google Play app market for Android, if you swipe in the first part of the Konami code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right), a box will appear with buttons for “B,” “A,” and “Start” — which is how you end the infamous code.
And finally, one of the most well-known Google jokes was its partnership with Nintendo for The Google Maps Pokémon Challenge. This had people using the maps program to find the pocket monsters hiding in real places around the world map.