title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: Shah has also starred in international projects, such as "Monsoon Wedding" in 2001 and a Hollywood adaptation of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" in 2003 (co-starring Sean Connery), where he played Captain Nemo. His portrayal of Nemo was very close to the design of the graphic novel, although his Nemo was far less manic. He worked in Vishal Bhardwaj's Indian adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth", titled "Maqbool", in 2003, and Rajiv Rai's "Asambhav" opposite Arjun Rampal and Priyanka Chopra in 2004. He then went on to work in "The Great New Wonderful" (2005). Shah played a pivotal role in "Today's Special", Aasif Mandvi's 2009 independent comedy film. In 2011, Shah was seen in "The Dirty Picture". He acted in Anup Kurian's "The Blueberry Hunt", playing a recluse growing marijuana in his forest retreat, and in "Waiting", starring opposite Kalki Koechlin, both of which were released in 2016.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: Shah made his Pakistani film debut in "Khuda Ke Liye" by Shoaib Mansoor, where he played a short cameo. His second Pakistani film "Zinda Bhaag" was selected as the country's official entry to the 86th Academy Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film award.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: Shah has performed with his theatre troupe at places such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Lahore. He has directed plays written by Lavender Kumar, Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: His directorial debut in movies, "Yun Hota To Kya Hota", was released in 2006. It stars several established actors such as Konkona Sen Sharma, Paresh Rawal, Irrfan Khan, then-newcomer Ayesha Takia, his son Imaad Shah and his old friend Ravi Baswani.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: He has directed several plays written by eminent people such as Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai and Lavendar Kumar.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: In 1977, Shah, Tom Alter and Benjamin Gilani formed a theatre group called Motley Productions. Their first play was Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", which was staged at the Prithvi Theatre on 29 July 1979.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: In 1988, he acted in the eponymous television series based on the life and times of Mirza Ghalib, directed by Gulzar and telecast on DD National.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: In 1989, he acted as the Maratha King Shivaji in another eponymous television series "Bharat Ek Khoj" based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book "The Discovery of India".


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: In 1999, he acted as a special agent in the TV series "Tarkash" on Zee TV. He played a retired agent haunted by nightmares who is re-inducted as he apparently knows something about a dreaded terrorist somehow connected with his past. He played the villain with the dual identity of a ghazal singer and a Pakistani spy who supports terrorism in India in "Sarfarosh" (1999). He was the first of several celebrity actors, who played narrator in the popular audiobook series for kids "Karadi Tales". He along with wife Ratna was the narrator in the film "Paheli" — the Indian entry to the 2006 Academy Awards.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: In 2017, Shah returned to film, starring in Shakespearean adaption The Hungry, screened under special presentations at the Toronto International Film Festival 2017.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: Shah was married to Manara Sikri and had a daughter, Heeba, with her. In the 1970s, Shah met and fell in love with Ratna Pathak, the daughter of Dina Pathak, a well-respected character actress. During the 70s and 80s they co-starred in several films, including "Mirch Masala" and "The Perfect Murder". They were in a live-in relationship for many years, while Shah put together the "mehr" required to divorce Manara. Shah and Pathak were finally married in 1982. Manara died the same year due to unknown reasons. By his second marriage, Shah has two sons, Imaad and Vivaan, both of whom are actors. The couple lives in Mumbai with Heeba, Imaad and Vivaan.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: In an interview with "HT Brunch", Shah speaks about having thought about an autobiography for almost 10 years. He penned down his thoughts occasionally during this period until he finally came up with 100-odd pages. What had started as an amusing pastime had clearly grown into something much deeper. He then presented the unfinished version to his friend, historian Ramchandra Guha, who encouraged Shah to complete it and send it to a publication house. Shah's memoir is titled "And Then One Day", and was published by Hamish Hamilton.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: Naseeruddin has been frequently involved in controversy with his criticism of senior actors like Dilip Kumar, fellow actors like Anupam Kher, Amitabh Bachchan, juniors like Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, cricketer Virat Kohli and politician and Prime minister Narendra Modi. Shah once said that people watching movies of Shahrukh and Salman should not watch his movies. In July 2016, Shah blamed Rajesh Khanna for mediocrity in movies with his poor acting during the 1970s. He also stated that Khanna was not an alert person whom he had met. However, later after criticism from several people in the Bollywood fraternity including Khanna's daughter Twinkle, Naseeruddin apologized about his views. On 18 December 2018, he sparked a controversy by calling Virat Kohli as the worst behaved cricketer in the world.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: Shah was criticized by [Nationalist media] after he reacted to an incident of communal violence in December 2018. He stated that he felt unsafe in current day India and was worried about the safety of his children if they were caught in a mob violence situation.


title: Naseeruddin Shah

text: In January 2020, Shah was targeted by media after criticizing his co-actor colleague Anupam Kher for his views supporting the Indian government’s Citizenship Amendment Act, calling him a clown and sycophant.


title: Igbo people

text: natively ) are an ethnic group in Nigeria. They are primarily found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. A sizable Igbo population is also found in Delta and Rivers States. Large ethnic Igbo populations are found in Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea, as well as outside Africa. There has been much speculation about the origins of the Igbo people, which are largely unknown. Geographically, the Igbo homeland is divided into two unequal sections by the Niger River—an eastern (which is the larger of the two) and a western section. The Igbo people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa.


title: Igbo people

text: The Igbo language is part of the Niger-Congo language family. Its regional dialects are somewhat mutually intelligible amidst the larger "Igboid" cluster.


title: Igbo people

text: The Igbo homeland straddles the lower Niger River, east and south of the Edoid and Idomoid groups, and west of the Ibibioid (Cross River) cluster.


title: Igbo people

text: Before the period of British colonial rule in the 20th century, the Igbo were politically fragmented by the centralized chiefdoms of Nri, Aro Confederacy, Agbor and Onitsha. Frederick Lugard introduced the "Eze" system of "warrant chiefs". Unaffected by the Fulani War and the resulting spread of Islam in Nigeria in the 19th century, they became overwhelmingly Christian under colonization. In the wake of decolonisation, the Igbo developed a strong sense of ethnic identity. During the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970, the Igbo territories seceded as the short-lived Republic of Biafra. The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra and the Indigenous People of Biafra, two sectarian organizations formed after 1999, continue a non-violent struggle for an independent Igbo state.


title: Igbo people

text: "Igbo" as an ethnic identity developed comparatively recently, in the context of decolonisation and the Nigerian Civil War. The various Igbo-speaking communities were historically fragmented and decentralised; in the opinion of Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, Igbo identity should be placed somewhere between a "tribe" and a "nation". Since the defeat of the Republic of Biafra in 1970, the Igbo are sometimes classed as a "stateless nation".


title: Igbo people

text: The Igboid languages form a cluster within the Volta–Niger phylum, most likely grouped with Yoruboid and Edoid. The greatest differentiation within the Igboid group is between the Ekpeye, and the rest. Williamson (2002) argues that based on this pattern, proto-Igboid migration would have moved down the Niger from a more northern area in the savannah and first settled close to the delta, with a secondary center of Igbo proper more to the north, in the Awka area. Genetic studies have shown the Igbo to cluster most closely with other Niger-Congo-speaking peoples. The predominant Y-chromosmoal haplogroup is E1b1a1-M2.


title: Igbo people

text: Pottery dated from around 3,000-2,500 BC showing similarities with later Igbo work was found at Nsukka, and Afikpo regions of Igboland in the 1970s, along with pottery and tools at nearby Ibagwa; the traditions of the Umueri clan have as their source the Anambra valley. In the 1970s the Owerri, Okigwe, Orlu, Awgu, Udi and Awka divisions were determined to constitute "an Igbo heartland" from the linguistic and cultural evidence. In the Nsukka region of Igboland, evidence of early iron smelting has been excavated, dating to 750 BC at the site of Opi and 2,000 BC at the site of Lejja.


title: Igbo people

text: The Nri people of Igbo land have a creation myth which is one of the many creation myths that exist in various parts of Igbo land. The Nri and Aguleri people are in the territory of the Umueri clan who trace their lineages back to the patriarchal king-figure Eri. Eri's origins are unclear, though he has been described as a "sky being" sent by Chukwu (God). He has been characterized as having first given societal order to the people of Anambra. The historian Elizabeth Allo Isichei says "Nri and Aguleri and part of the Umueri clan, [are] a cluster of Igbo village groups which traces its origins to a sky being called Eri."


title: Igbo people

text: Archaeological evidence suggests that Nri influence in Igboland may go back as far as the 9th century, and royal burials have been unearthed dating to at least the 10th century. Eri, the god-like founder of Nri, is believed to have settled the region around 948 with other related Igbo cultures following after in the 13th century. The first Eze Nri (King of Nri) Ìfikuánim followed directly after him. According to Igbo oral tradition, his reign started in 1043. At least one historian puts Ìfikuánim's reign much later, around 1225 AD.


title: Igbo people

text: Each king traces his origin back to the founding ancestor, Eri. Each king is a ritual reproduction of Eri. The initiation rite of a new king shows that the ritual process of becoming Ezenri (Nri priest-king) follows closely the path traced by the hero in establishing the Nri kingdom.


title: Igbo people

text: The Kingdom of Nri was a religio-polity, a sort of theocratic state, that developed in the central heartland of the Igbo region. The Nri had seven types of taboos which included human (such as the birth of twins), animal (such as killing or eating of pythons), object, temporal, behavioral, speech and place taboos. The rules regarding these taboos were used to educate and govern Nri's subjects. This meant that, while certain Igbo may have lived under different formal administration, all followers of the Igbo religion had to abide by the rules of the faith and obey its representative on earth, the Eze Nri.


title: Igbo people

text: Traditional Igbo political organization was based on a quasi-democratic republican system of government. In tight knit communities, this system guaranteed its citizens equality, as opposed to a feudalist system with a king ruling over subjects. This government system was witnessed by the Portuguese who first arrived and met with the Igbo people in the 15th century. With the exception of a few notable Igbo towns such as Onitsha, which had kings called Obi and places like the Nri Kingdom and Arochukwu, which had priest kings; Igbo communities and area governments were overwhelmingly ruled by a republican consultative assembly of the common people. Communities were usually governed and administered by a council of elders.


title: Igbo people

text: Although title holders were respected because of their accomplishments and capabilities, they were not revered as kings but often performed special functions given to them by such assemblies. This way of governing was different from most other communities of Western Africa and only shared by the Ewe of Ghana. "Umunna" are a form of patrilineage maintained by the Igbo. Law starts with the "Umunna" which is a male line of descent from a founding ancestor (who the line is sometimes named after) with groups of compounds containing closely related families headed by the eldest male member. The "Umunna" can be seen as the most important pillar of Igbo society. It was also a culture in which gender was re-constructed and performed according to social need; "The flexibility of Igbo gender construction meant that gender was separate from biological sex. Daughters could become sons and consequently male."


title: Igbo people

text: Mathematics in indigenous Igbo society is evident in their calendar, banking system and strategic betting game called "Okwe". In their indigenous calendar, a week had four days, a month consisted of seven weeks, and 13 months made a year. In the last month, an extra day was added. This calendar is still used in indigenous Igbo villages and towns to determine market days. They settled law matters via mediators, and their banking system for loans and savings, called Isusu, is also still used. The Igbo new year, starting with the month "Ọ́nwạ́ M̀bụ́" () occurs on the third week of February, although the traditional start of the year for many Igbo communities is around springtime in "Ọ́nwạ́ Ágwụ́" (June). Used as a ceremonial script by secret societies, the Igbo have an indigenous ideographic set of symbols called Nsibidi, originating from the neighboring Ejagham people. Igbo people produced bronzes from as early as the 9th century, some of which have been found at the town of Igbo Ukwu, Anambra State.


title: Igbo people

text: A system of indentured servitude existed among the Igbo before and after the encounter with Europeans. Indentured service in Igbo areas was described by Olaudah Equiano in his memoir. He describes the conditions of the slaves in his community of Essaka and points out the difference between the treatment of slaves under the Igbo in Essaka and those in the custody of Europeans in West Indies:


title: Igbo people

text: ...but how different was their condition from that of the slaves in the West Indies! With us, they do no more work than other members of the community... even their master;... (except that they were not permitted to eat with those... free-born;) and there was scarce any other difference between them... Some of these slaves have... slaves under them as their own property... for their own use.


title: Igbo people

text: The Niger coast was the scene of contact between European merchants and the local African kingdoms beginning in 1n 1434 with the arrival of the Portuguese. Portuguese slave traders established factories and started to purchase enslaved Africans from the region, transporting them across the Atlantic to their colonies in the Americas, in particular Brazil. Slave traders from other European nations soon followed, and the region became a vital hub of the Atlantic slave trade. European involvement in the Atlantic slave trade was gradually outlawed during the 19th century, and as such Europeans in the region started to shift their focus away from trade and into colonialism. Prior to European contact, Igbo trade routes stretched as far as Mecca, Medina and Jeddah on the African continent and the Middle East.


title: Igbo people

text: Chambers (2002) argues that many of the slaves taken from the Bight of Biafra across the Middle Passage would have been Igbo. These slaves were usually sold to Europeans by the Aro Confederacy, who kidnapped or bought slaves from Igbo villages in the hinterland. Igbo slaves may have not been victims of slave-raiding wars or expeditions but perhaps debtors or Igbo people who committed within their communities alleged crimes. With the goal for freedom, enslaved Igbo people were known to European planters as being rebellious and having a high rate of suicide to escape slavery. There is evidence that traders sought Igbo women. Igbo women were paired with Coromantee (Akan) men to subdue the men because of the belief that the women were bound to their first-born sons’ birthplace.


title: Igbo people

text: It is alleged that European slave traders were fairly well informed about various African ethnicities, leading to slavers targeting certain ethnic groups which plantation owners preferred. Particular desired ethnic groups consequently became fairly concentrated in certain parts of the Americas. The Igbo were dispersed to colonies such as Jamaica, Cuba, Saint-Domingue, Barbados, Colonial America, Belize and Trinidad and Tobago, among others.


title: Igbo people

text: Elements of Igbo culture can still be found in these places. For example, in Jamaican Patois, the Igbo word "unu", meaning "you" plural, is still used. "Red Ibo" (or "red eboe") describes a black person with fair or "yellowish" skin. This term had originated from the reported prevalence of these skin tones among the Igbo, but eastern Nigerian influences may not be strictly Igbo. The word "Bim", a colloquial term for Barbados, was commonly used among enslaved Barbadians (Bajans). This word is said to have derived from "bém" in the Igbo language meaning 'my place or people', but may have other origins (see: Barbados etymology). A section of Belize City was named "Eboe Town" after its Igbo inhabitants. In the United States, the Igbo were imported to the Chesapeake Bay colonies and states of Maryland and Virginia, where they constituted the largest group of Africans. Since the late 20th century, a wave of Nigerian immigrants, mostly English and Igbo-speaking, have settled in Maryland, attracted to its strong professional job market. They were also imported to the southern borders of Georgia and South Carolina considered the low country and where Gulluh culture still preserves African traditions of its ancestors. Today, there is an area called Igbo Landing, where a group of Igbo had tried to drown themselves, rather than become slaves, when they disembarked the slave ship.


title: Igbo people

text: The establishment of British colonial rule in present-day Nigeria and increased encounters between the Igbo and other ethnicities near the Niger River led to a deepening sense of a distinct Igbo ethnic identity. The Igbo proved decisive and enthusiastic in their embrace of Christianity and Western-style education. Because of the incompatibility of the Igbo decentralized style of government and the centralized system including the appointment of warrant chiefs required for British system of indirect rule, the period colonial rule was marked with numerous conflicts and tension. During the colonial era, the diversity within each of Nigeria's major ethnic groups slowly decreased, and distinctions between the Igbo and other large ethnic groups, such as the Hausa and the Yoruba, became sharper.


title: Igbo people

text: The establishment of British colonial rule transformed Igbo society, as portrayed in Chinua Achebe's novel "Things Fall Apart". Colonial rule brought about changes in culture, such as the introduction of warrant chiefs as Eze (indigenous rulers) where there were no such monarchies. Christian missionaries introduced aspects of European ideology into Igbo society and culture, sometimes shunning parts of the culture. The rumours that the Igbo women were being assessed for taxation sparked off the 1929 Igbo Women's War in Aba (also known as the 1929 Aba Riots), a massive revolt of women never encountered before in Igbo history.


title: Igbo people

text: Aspects of Igbo culture such as construction of houses, education and religion changed following colonialism. The tradition of building houses out of mud walls and thatched roofs ended as the people shifted to materials such as concrete blocks for houses and metal roofs. Roads for vehicles were built. Buildings such as hospitals and schools were erected in many parts of Igboland. Along with these changes, electricity and running water were installed in the early 20th century. With electricity, new technology such as radios and televisions were adopted, and have become commonplace in most Igbo households.


title: Igbo people

text: A series of black and white, silent films about the Igbo people made by George Basden in the 1920s and 1930s are held in the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection at Bristol Archives (Ref. 2006/070).


title: Igbo people

text: A series of ethnic clashes between Northern Muslims and the Igbo, and other ethnic groups of Eastern Nigeria Region living in Northern Nigeria took place between 1966 and 1967. Elements in the army had assassinated the Nigerian military head of state General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi on 29 July 1966, and peace negotiations failed between the military government that deposed Ironsi and the regional government of Eastern Nigeria at the Aburi Talks in Ghana in 1967. These events led to a regional council of the peoples of Eastern Nigeria deciding that the region should secede and proclaim the Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967. General Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu made this declaration and became the head of state of the new republic.


title: Igbo people

text: The resultant war, which became known as the Nigerian Civil War or the Nigerian-Biafran War, lasted from 6 July 1967 until 15 January 1970, after which the federal government re-absorbed Biafra into Nigeria. Several million Eastern Nigerians died from the pogroms against them, such as the 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom where between 10,000 and 30,000 Igbo people were killed. Many homes, schools, and hospitals were destroyed in the conflict. The federal government of Nigeria denied Igbo people access to their savings placed in Nigerian banks and provided them with little compensation. The war also led to a great deal of discrimination against the Igbo people at the hands of other ethnic groups.


title: Igbo people

text: In their struggle, the people of Biafra earned the respect of figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre and John Lennon, who returned his MBE, partly in protest against British support for the Nigerian government in the Biafran War. Odumegwu-Ojukwu, stated that the three years of freedom allowed his people to become the most civilized and most technologically advanced black people in the world. In July 2007, Odumegwu-Ojukwu renewed calls for the secession of the Biafran state as a sovereign entity.


title: Igbo people

text: Some Igbo subgroups, such as the Ikwerre, started dissociating themselves from the larger Igbo population after the war. In the post-war era, people of eastern Nigeria changed the names of both people and places to non-Igbo-sounding words. For instance, the town of Igbo-uzo was anglicized to "Ibusa". Because of discrimination, many Igbo had trouble finding employment, and during the early 1970s, the Igbo became one of the poorest ethnic groups in Nigeria.


title: Igbo people

text: Igbo rebuilt their cities by themselves without any contribution from the federal government of Nigeria. This led to the establishment of new factories in southern Nigeria. Many Igbo people eventually took government positions, although many were engaged in private business. Since the early 21st century, there has been a wave of Nigerian Igbo immigration to other African countries, Europe, and the Americas.


title: Igbo people

text: The 1930s saw the rise of Igbo unions in the cities of Lagos and Port Harcourt. Later, the Ibo Federal Union (renamed the Ibo State Union in 1948) emerged as an umbrella pan-ethnic organization. Headed by Nnamdi Azikiwe, it was closely associated with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, which he co-founded with Herbert Macaulay. The aim of the organization was the improvement and advancement (such as in education) of the Igbo and their indigenous land and included an Igbo "national anthem" with a plan for an Igbo bank.


title: Igbo people

text: In 1978, after Olusegun Obasanjo's military regime lifted the ban on independent political activity, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo organization was formed, an elite umbrella organization which speaks on behalf of the Igbo people. Their main concerns are the marginalization of the Igbo people in Nigerian politics and the neglect of indigenous Igbo territory in social amenities and development of infrastructure. Other groups which protest the perceived marginalization of the Igbo people are the Igbo Peoples Congress. Even before the 20th century, there were numerous Igbo unions and organizations existing around the world, such as the Igbo union in Bathurst, Gambia in 1842, founded by a prominent Igbo trader and ex-soldier named Thomas Refell. Another was the union founded by the Igbo community in Freetown, Sierra Leone by 1860, of which Africanus Horton, a surgeon, scientist and soldier, was an active member.


title: Igbo people

text: Decades after the Nigerian-Biafran war, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), a secessionist group, was founded in September 1999 by Ralph Uwazurike for the goal of an independent Igbo state. Since its creation, there have been several conflicts between its members and the Nigerian government, resulting in the death of members. After the 2015 Nigerian general elections a group known as the Indigenous People of Biafra became the most prominent vocal group for the agitation of the creation of an independent state of Biafra through a radio station named Radio Biafra. For the promotion of the Igbo language and culture, the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture was founded in 1949 by Frederick Chidozie Ogbalu and has since created a standard dialect for Igbo.


title: Igbo people

text: Igbo culture includes the various customs, practices and traditions of the people. It comprises archaic practices as well as new concepts added into the Igbo culture either through evolution or outside influences. These customs and traditions include the Igbo people's visual art, use of language, music and dance forms, as well as their attire, cuisine and language dialects. Because of their various , the variety of their culture is heightened further.


title: Igbo people

text: The Igbo language was used by John Goldsmith as an example to justify deviating from the classical linear model of phonology as laid out in "The Sound Pattern of English". It is written in the Roman script as well as the Nsibidi formalized ideograms, which is used by the Ekpe society and Okonko fraternity but is no longer widely used. Nsibidi ideography existed among the Igbo before the 16th century but died out after it became popular among secret societies, who made Nsibidi a secret form of communication. Igbo language is difficult because of the huge number of dialects, its richness in prefixes and suffixes and its heavy intonation. Igbo is a tonal language, and there are hundreds of different Igbo dialects and Igboid languages, such as the Ikwerre and Ekpeye languages. In 1939, Dr. Ida C. Ward led a research expedition on Igbo dialects which could possibly be used as a basis of a standard Igbo dialect, also known as "Central Igbo". This dialect included that of the Owerri and Umuahia groups, including the Ohuhu dialect. This proposed dialect was gradually accepted by missionaries, writers, publishers, and Cambridge University.


title: Igbo people

text: In 1789, "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano" was published in London, England, written by Olaudah Equiano, a former slave. The book features 79 Igbo words. In the first and second chapter, the book illustrates various aspects of Igbo life based on Olaudah Equiano's life in his hometown of Essaka. Although the book was one of the first books published to include Igbo material, "Geschichte der Mission der evangelischen Brüder auf den caraibischen Inseln St. Thomas, St. Croix und S. Jan" (), published in 1777, written by the German missionary C. G. A. Oldendorp, was the first book to publish any Igbo material.


title: Igbo people

text: Perhaps the most popular and renowned novel that deals with the Igbo and their traditional life was the 1959 book by Chinua Achebe, "Things Fall Apart". The novel concerns the influence of British colonial rule and Christian missionaries on a traditional Igbo community during an unspecified time in the late nineteenth or early 20th century. Most of the novel is set in Iguedo, one of nine villages on the lower Niger.


title: Igbo people

text: The Igbo people have a musical style into which they incorporate various percussion instruments: the udu, which is essentially designed from a clay jug; an ekwe, which is formed from a hollowed log; and the ogene, a hand bell designed from forged iron. Other instruments include opi, a wind instrument similar to the flute, igba, and ichaka. Another popular musical form among the Igbo is highlife. A widely popular musical genre in West Africa, highlife is a fusion of jazz and traditional music. The modern Igbo highlife is seen in the works of Dr Sir Warrior, Oliver De Coque, Bright Chimezie and Chief Osita Osadebe, who were among the most popular Igbo highlife musicians of the 20th century.


title: Igbo people

text: Masking is one of the most common art styles in Igboland and is linked strongly with Igbo traditional music. A mask can be made of wood or fabric, along with other materials including iron and vegetation. Masks have a variety of uses, mainly in social satires, religious rituals, secret society initiations (such as the Ekpe society) and public festivals, which now include Christmas time celebrations. Some of the best known include the Agbogho Mmuo () masks of the northern Igbo which represent the spirits of deceased maidens and their mothers with masks symbolizing beauty. Other impressive masks include northern Igbo Ijele masks. At high, Ijele masks consist of platforms in diameter, supporting figures made of coloured cloth and representing everyday scenes with objects such as leopards. Ijele masks are used for honoring the dead to ensure the continuity and well-being of the community and are only seen on rare occasions such as the death of a prominent figure in the community.


title: Igbo people

text: There are many Igbo dance styles, but perhaps, Igbo dance is best known for its atilogwu dance troops. These performances include acrobatic stunts such as high kicks and cartwheels, with each rhythm from the indigenous instruments indicating a movement to the dancer. The Egedege Dance is an Igbo traditional Royal-styled cultural dance of South Eastern Nigeria.


title: Igbo people

text: There is such variety among Igbo groups that it is not possible to define a general Igbo art style. Bronze castings found in the town of Igbo Ukwu from the 9th century, constitute the earliest sculptures discovered in Igboland. Here, the grave of a well-established man of distinction and a ritual store, dating from the 9th century AD, contained both chased copper objects and elaborate castings of leaded bronze. Along with these bronzes were 165,000 glass beads said to have originated in Egypt, Venice and India. Some popular Igbo art styles include Uli designs. The majority of the Igbo carve and use masks, although the function of masks vary by community.


title: Igbo people

text: Igbo art is noted for Mbari architecture. Mbari houses of the Owerri-Igbo are large opened-sided square planned shelters. They house many life-sized, painted figures (sculpted in mud to appease the Alusi (deity) and Ala, the earth goddess, with other deities of thunder and water). Other sculptures are of officials, craftsmen, foreigners (mainly Europeans), animals, legendary creatures and ancestors. Mbari houses take years to build in what is regarded as a sacred process. When new ones are constructed, old ones are left to decay. Everyday houses were made of mud with thatched roofs and bare earth floors with carved design doors. Some houses had elaborate designs both in the interior and exterior. These designs could include Uli art designed by Igbo women.


title: Igbo people

text: One of the unique structures of Igbo culture was the Nsude Pyramids, at the town of Nsude, in Abaja, northern Igboland. Ten pyramidal structures were built of clay/mud. The first base section was in circumference and in height. The next stack was in circumference. Circular stacks continued, until it reached the top. The structures were temples for the god Ala/Uto, who was believed to reside at the top. A stick was placed at the top to represent the god's residence. The structures were laid in groups of five parallel to each other. Because it was built of clay/mud like the Deffufa of Nubia, time has taken its toll requiring periodic reconstruction.


title: Igbo people

text: The supreme deity is called Chukwu ("great spirit"); Chukwu created the world and everything in it and is associated with all things on Earth. They believe the cosmos is divided into four complex parts: creation, known as Okike; supernatural forces or deities called Alusi; Mmuo, which are spirits; and Uwa, the world.


title: Igbo people

text: Chukwu is the supreme deity in Odinani as he is the creator, and the Igbo people believe that all things come from him and that everything on earth, heaven and the rest of the spiritual world is under his control. Linguistic studies of the Igbo language suggest that the name "Chukwu" is a compound of the Igbo words "Chi" (spiritual being) and "Ukwu" (great in size). Each individual is born with a spiritual guide/guardian angel or guardian principle, "Chi", unique to each individual and the individual's fate and destiny is determined by their Chi. Thus the Igbos say that the siblings may come of the same mother but no two people have the same Chi and thus different destinies for all. Alusi, alternatively known as Arusi or Arushi (depending on dialect), are minor deities that are worshiped and served in Odinani. There are many different Alusi, each with its own purpose. When an individual deity is no longer needed, or becomes too violent, it is discarded.


title: Igbo people

text: The Igbo have traditionally believed in reincarnation. People are believed to reincarnate into families that they were part of while alive. Before a relative dies, it is said that the soon to be deceased relative sometimes give clues of who they will reincarnate as in the family. Once a child is born, he or she is believed to give signs of who they have reincarnated from. This can be through behavior, physical traits and statements by the child. A diviner can help in detecting who the child has reincarnated from. It is considered an insult if a male is said to have reincarnated as a female.


title: Igbo people

text: Children are not allowed to call elders by their names without using an honorific (as this is considered disrespectful). As a sign of respect, children are required to greet elders when seeing them for the first time in the day. Children usually add the Igbo honorifics "Mazi" or "Dede" before an elder's name when addressing them.


title: Igbo people

text: Christianity was introduced to the Igbo people through European colonization in 1857. The Igbo people were hesitant to convert to Christianity initially because they believed the gods of their native religion would bring disaster to them. However, Christianity gradually gained converts in Igbo land, mainly through the work of church agents. These men built schools and focused on persuading the youth to adopt Christian values. The Igbo people today are known as the ethnic group that has adopted Christianity the most in all of Africa.


title: Igbo people

text: The Igbo people were unaffected by the Islamic jihad waged in Nigeria in the 19th century, but a small minority converted to Islam in the 20th century. There is also a small population of Igbo Jews, some of whom merely identifying as Jews, while others having converted to Judaism. These draw their inspiration from Olaudah Equiano, a Christian-educated freed slave who remarked in his autobiography of 1789 on "the strong analogy which... appears to prevail in the manners and customs of my countrymen and those of the Jews, before they reached the Land of Promise, and particularly the patriarchs while they were yet in that pastoral state which is described in Genesis—an analogy, which alone would induce me to think that the one people had sprung from the other." Equiano's speculation has given rise to a great debate on the origins of the Igbo.


title: Igbo people

text: After a death, the body of a prominent member of society is placed on a stool in a sitting posture and is clothed in the deceased's finest garments. Animal sacrifices may be offered and the dead person is well perfumed. Burial usually follows within 24 hours of death. In the 21st century, the head of a home is usually buried within the compound of his residence. Different types of deaths warrant different types of burials. This is determined by an individual's age, gender and status in society. Children are buried in hiding and out of sight; their burials usually take place in the early mornings and late nights. A simple untitled man is buried in front of his house and a simple mother is buried in her place of origin: in a garden or a farm-area that belonged to her father. In the 21st century, a majority of the Igbo bury their dead in the western way, although it is not uncommon for burials to be practiced in the traditional Igbo ways.


title: Igbo people

text: The process of marrying usually involves asking the young woman's consent, introducing the woman to the man's family and the same for the man to the woman's family, testing the bride's character, checking the woman's family background, and paying the brides' wealth. Typically speaking, bride wealth is more symbolic. Nonetheless, kola nuts, wine, goats, and chickens, among other things, are listed in the proposal, as well. Negotiating the bride wealth can also take more than one day, giving both parties time for a ceremonial feast. Marriages were sometimes arranged from birth through negotiation of the two families. However, after a series of interviews conducted in the 1990s with 250 Igbo women, it was found that 94.4% of that sample population disapproved of arranged marriages.


title: Igbo people

text: In the past, many Igbo men practiced polygamy. The polygamous family is made up of a man and his wives and all their children. Men sometimes married multiple wives for economic reasons so as to have more people in the family, including children, to help on farms. Christian and civil marriages have changed the Igbo family since colonization. Igbo people now tend to enter monogamous courtships and create nuclear families, mainly because of Western influence. Some Western marriage customs, such as weddings in a church, take place either before or after the lgbo cultural traditional marriage.


title: Igbo people

text: Traditionally, the attire of the Igbo generally consisted of little clothing, as the purpose of clothing originally was simply to conceal private parts. Because of this purpose, children were often nude from birth until the beginning of their adolescence—the time they were considered to have something to hide. Uli body art was used to decorate both men and women in the form of lines forming patterns and shapes on the body.


title: Igbo people

text: Women traditionally carry their babies on their backs with a strip of clothing binding the two with a knot at her chest, a practice used by many ethnic groups across Africa. This method has been modernized in the form of the child carrier. Maidens usually wore a short wrapper with beads around their waist and other ornaments such as necklaces and beads. Both men and women wore wrappers. Men would wear loincloths that wrapped round their waist and between their legs to be fastened at their back, the type of clothing appropriate for the intense heat as well as jobs such as farming.


title: Igbo people

text: In Olaudah Equiano's narrative, Equiano describes fragrances that were used by the Igbo in the community of Essaka:


title: Igbo people

text: Our principal luxury is in perfumes; one sort of these is an odoriferous wood of delicious fragrance: the other a kind of earth; a small portion of which thrown into the fire diffuses a most powerful odor. We beat this wood into powder, and mix it with palm oil; with which both men and women perfume themselves.


title: Igbo people

text: As colonialism became more influential, the Igbo adapted their dress customs. Clothing worn before colonialism became "traditional" and worn on cultural occasions. Modern Igbo traditional attire, for men, is generally made up of the Isiagu top, which resembles the Dashiki worn by other African groups. Isiagu (or "ishi agu") is usually patterned with lions' heads embroidered over the clothing and can be a plain colour. It is worn with trousers and can be worn with either a ceremonial title holders hat or with the conventional known as "okpu" a"gu". For women, a puffed sleeve blouse along with two wrappers and a head tie are worn.


title: Igbo people

text: The yam is very important to the Igbo as the staple crop. It is known for its resiliency (a yam can remain fully edible for six months without refrigeration), but it can also be very versatile in terms of its incorporation into different dishes. Yams can be fried, roasted, boiled, or made into a potage with tomatoes and herbs. The cultivation of yams is most commonly carried out by men, as women tend to focus on other crops.


title: Igbo people

text: There are celebrations such as the New Yam festival () which are held for the harvesting of the yam. During the festival, yam is eaten throughout the communities as celebration. Yam tubers are shown off by individuals as a sign of success and wealth. Rice has replaced yam for many ceremonial occasions. Other indigenous foods include cassava, garri, maize and plantains. Soups or stews are included in a typical meal, prepared with a vegetable (such as okra, of which the word derives from the Igbo language, "okwuru") to which pieces of fish, chicken, beef, or goat meat are added. Jollof rice is popular throughout West Africa, and palm wine is a popular alcoholic traditional beverage.


title: Igbo people

text: The Igbo people are natively found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Delta, and Rivers State. The Igbo language is predominant throughout these areas, although Nigerian English (the national language) is spoken as well. Prominent towns and cities in Igboland include Aba, Enugu, Nnewi, Onitsha, Owerri, Abakaliki, Asaba, and Port Harcourt among others. A significant number of Igbo people have migrated to other parts of Nigeria, such as the cities of Lagos, Abuja, and Kano.


title: Igbo people

text: The official data on the population of ethnic groups in Nigeria continues to be controversial as a minority of these groups have claimed that the government deliberately deflates the official population of one group, to give the other numerical superiority. The CIA World Factbook puts the Igbo population of Nigeria at 15.2% of a total population of 225 million, or around 34 million people.


title: Igbo people

text: Southeastern Nigeria, which is inhabited primarily by the Igbo, is the most densely populated area in Nigeria and possibly in all of Africa. Most ethnicities that inhabit southeastern Nigeria, such as the closely related Efik and Ibibio people, are sometimes regarded as Igbo by other Nigerians and ethnographers who are not well informed about the southeast.


title: Igbo people

text: After the Nigerian Civil War, many Igbo people emigrated out of the indigenous Igbo homeland in southeastern Nigeria because of an absence of federal presence, lack of jobs, and poor infrastructure. In recent decades the Igbo region of Nigeria has suffered from frequent environmental damage mainly related to the oil industry. Igbo people have moved to both Nigerian cities such as Lagos and Abuja, and other countries such as Gabon, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Prominent Igbo communities outside Africa include those of London in the United Kingdom and Houston, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., in the United States.


title: Igbo people

text: About 21,000 Igbo people were recorded in Ghana in 1969, while as small number (8,680) lived on Bioko island in 2002. Small numbers live in Japan, making up the majority of the Nigerian immigrant population based in Tokyo. A large amount of the African population of Guangdong, China, is Igbo-speaking and are mainly businessmen trading between factories in China and southeastern Nigeria, particularly Enugu. Other Igbo immigrants are found in the Americas (Igbo Canadian, Igbo American and elsewhere.


title: Igbo people

text: In the 2003 PBS programme "African American Lives", Bishop T. D. Jakes had his DNA analyzed; his Y chromosome showed that he is descended from the Igbo. American actors Forest Whitaker, Paul Robeson, and Blair Underwood have traced their genealogy back to the Igbo people.


title: Pac-Man

text: Game development began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports. Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he also rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (). The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of "Puck Man" was derived from the titular character's hockey puck–like shape; the title was changed for the North American release to mitigate vandalism.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" was a widespread critical and commercial success, leading to several sequels, merchandise, and two television series, as well as a hit single by Buckner & Garcia. The character of Pac-Man is now the mascot and flagship icon of Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game remains one of the highest-grossing and best-selling games, generating more than $14 billion in revenue () and 43 million units in sales combined, and has an enduring commercial and cultural legacy, commonly listed as one of the greatest video games of all time.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" is an action maze chase video game; the player controls the eponymous character through an enclosed maze. The objective of the game is to eat all of the dots placed in the maze while avoiding four colored ghosts — Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange) — that pursue Pac-Man. When Pac-Man eats all of the dots, the player advances to the next level. Levels are indicated by fruit icons at the bottom of the screen. In between levels are short cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky in humorous, comical situations.


title: Pac-Man

text: If Pac-Man is caught by a ghost, he will lose a life; the game ends when all lives are lost. Each of the four ghosts has their own unique artificial intelligence (A.I.), or "personality": Blinky gives direct chase to Pac-Man; Pinky and Inky try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man, usually by cornering him; and Clyde will switch between chasing Pac-Man and fleeing from him.


title: Pac-Man

text: Placed at the four corners of the maze are large flashing "energizers" or "power pellets." Eating these will cause the ghosts to turn blue with a dizzied expression and to reverse direction. Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts for bonus points; when a ghost is eaten, their eyes make their way back to the center box in the maze, where the ghost "regenerates" and resumes their normal activity. Eating multiple blue ghosts in succession increases their point value. After a certain amount of time, blue-colored ghosts will flash white before turning back into their normal form. Eating a certain number of dots in a level will cause a bonus item — usually in the form of a fruit — to appear underneath the center box; the item can be eaten for bonus points. To the sides of the maze are two "warp tunnels", which allow Pac-Man and the ghosts to travel to the opposite side of the screen. Ghosts become slower when entering and exiting these tunnels.


title: Pac-Man

text: The game increases in difficulty as the player progresses: the ghosts become faster, and the energizers' effect decreases in duration, eventually disappearing entirely. Due to an integer overflow, the 256th level loads improperly, rendering it impossible to complete.


title: Pac-Man

text: After acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974, video game developer Namco began producing its own video games in-house, as opposed to simply licensing them from other developers and distributing them in Japan. Company president Masaya Nakamura created a small video game development group within the company and ordered them to study several NEC-produced microcomputers to potentially create new games with. One of the first people assigned to this division was a young 24-year-old employee named Toru Iwatani. He created Namco's first video game "Gee Bee" in 1978, which while unsuccessful helped the company gain a stronger foothold in the quickly-growing video game industry. He also assisted in the production of two sequels, "Bomb Bee" and "Cutie Q", both released in 1979.


title: Pac-Man

text: The Japanese video game industry had surged in popularity with games such as "Space Invaders" and "Breakout", which led to the market being flooded with similar titles from other manufacturers in an attempt to cash in on the success. Iwatani felt that arcade games only appealed to men for their crude graphics and violence, and that arcades in general were seen as seedy environments. For his next project, Iwatani chose to create a non-violent, cheerful video game that appealed mostly to women, as he believed that attracting women and couples into arcades would potentially make them appear to be much more family friendly in tone. Iwatani began thinking of things that women liked to do in their time; he decided to center his game around eating, basing this on women liking to eat desserts and other sweets. His game was initially called "Pakkuman", based on the Japanese onomatopoeia term “paku paku taberu”, referencing the mouth movement of opening and closing in succession.


title: Pac-Man

text: The game that later became "Pac-Man" began development in early 1979 and took a year and five months to complete, the longest ever for a video game up to that point. Iwatani enlisted the help of nine other Namco employees to assist in production, including composer Toshio Kai, programmer Shigeo Funaki, and hardware engineer Shigeichi Ishimura. Care was taken to make the game appeal to a “non-violent” audience, particularly women, with its usage of simple gameplay and cute, attractive character designs. When the game was being developed, Namco was underway with designing "Galaxian", which used a then-revolutionary RGB color display, allowing sprites to use several colors at once instead of using colored strips of cellophane that was commonplace at the time; this technological accomplishment allowed Iwatani to greatly enhance his game with bright pastel colors, which he felt would help attract players. The idea for energizers was a concept Iwatani borrowed from Popeye the Sailor, a cartoon character that temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating a can of spinach; it is also believed that Iwatani was also partly inspired by a Japanese children's story about a creature that protected children from monsters by devouring them. Frank Fogleman, the co-founder of Gremlin Industries, believes that the maze-chase gameplay of "Pac-Man" was inspired by Sega's "Head On" (1979), a similar arcade game that was popular in Japan.


title: Pac-Man

text: Iwatani has often claimed that the character of Pac-Man himself was designed after the shape of a pizza with a missing slice while he was at lunch; in a 1986 interview he said that this was only half-truth, and that the Pac-Man character was also based on him rounding out and simplifying the Japanese character “kuchi” (口), meaning “mouth”. The four ghosts were made to be cute, colorful and appealing, using bright, pastel colors and expressive blue eyes. Iwatani had used this idea before in "Cutie Q", which features similar ghost-like characters, and decided to incorporate it into "Pac-Man". He was also inspired by the television series "Casper the Friendly Ghost" and the manga "Obake no Q-Taro". Ghosts were chosen as the game's main antagonists due to them being used as villainous characters in animation. The idea for the fruit bonuses was based on graphics displayed on slot machines, which often use symbols such as cherries and bells.


title: Pac-Man

text: Originally, Namco president Masaya Nakamura had requested that all of the ghosts be red and thus indistinguishable from one another. Iwatani believed that the ghosts should be different colors, and he received unanimous support from his colleagues for this idea. Each of the ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct personalities, so as to keep the game from becoming too boring or impossibly difficult to play. Each ghost's name gives a hint to its strategy for tracking down Pac-Man: Shadow ("Blinky") always chases Pac-Man, Speedy ("Pinky") tries to get ahead of him, Bashful ("Inky") uses a more complicated strategy to zero in on him, and Pokey ("Clyde") alternates between chasing him and running away. (The ghosts' Japanese names, translated into English, are Chaser, Ambusher, Fickle, and Stupid, respectively.) To break up the tension of constantly being pursued, humorous intermissions between Pac-Man and Blinky were added. The sound effects were among the last things added to the game, created by Toshio Kai. In a design session, Iwatani noisily ate fruit and made gurgling noises to describe to Kai how he wanted the eating effect to sound. Upon completion, the game was titled "Puck Man", based on the working title and the titular character's distinct hockey puck-like shape.


title: Pac-Man

text: Location testing for "Puck Man" began on May 22, 1980 in Shibuya, Tokyo, to a relatively positive fanfare from players. A private showing for the game was done in June, followed by a nationwide release in July. Eyeing the game's success in Japan, Namco initialized plans to bring the game to the international market, particularly the United States. Before showing the game to distributors, Namco America made a number of changes, such as altering the names of the ghosts. The biggest of these was the game's title; executives at Namco were worried that vandals would change the “P” in "Puck Man" to an “F”, forming an obscene name. Masaya Nakamura chose to rename it to "Pac-Man", as he felt it was closer to the game's original Japanese title of "Pakkuman". In Europe, the game was released under both titles, "Pac-Man" and "Puck Man".


title: Pac-Man

text: When Namco presented "Pac-Man" and "Rally-X" to potential distributors at the 1980 AMOA tradeshow in November, executives believed that "Rally-X" would be the best-selling game of that year. According to "Play Meter" magazine, both "Pac-Man" and "Rally-X" received mild attention at the show. Namco had initially approached Atari to distribute "Pac-Man", but Atari refused the offer. Midway Manufacturing subsequently agreed to distribute both "Pac-Man" and "Rally-X" in North America, announcing their acquisition of the manufacturing rights on November 22 and releasing them in December.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" was ported to a plethora of home video game systems and personal computers; the most infamous of these is the 1982 Atari 2600 conversion, designed by Tod Frye and published by Atari. This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices, most notably the flickering effect of the ghosts. However, it was a commercial success, having sold over seven million copies. Atari also released versions for the Intellivision, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, IBM PC, TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari 8-bit family of computers. A port for the Atari 5200 was released in 1983, a version that many have seen as a significant improvement over the Atari 2600 version.


title: Pac-Man

text: Namco released a version for the Family Computer in 1984 as one of the console's first third-party titles, as well as a port for the MSX computer. The Famicom version was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari Games. Tengen also produced an unlicensed version of the game in a black cartridge shell, released during a time where Tengen and Nintendo were in bitter disagreements over the latter's stance on quality control for their consoles; this version was later re-released by Namco as an official title in 1993, featuring a new cartridge label and box. The Famicom version was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1990 as a budget title for the Disk Writer kiosks in retail stores. The same year, Namco released a port of "Pac-Man" for the Game Boy, which allowed for two-player co-operative play via the Game Link Cable peripheral. A version for the Game Gear was released a year later, which also enabled support for multiplayer. In celebration of the game's 20th anniversary in 1999, Namco re-released the Game Boy version for the Game Boy Color, bundled with "Pac-Attack" and titled "Pac-Man: Special Color Edition". The same year, Namco and SNK co-published a port for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which came with a circular "Cross Ring" that attached to the d-pad to restrict it to four-directional movement.


title: Pac-Man

text: In 2001, Namco released a port of "Pac-Man" for various Japanese mobile phones, being one of the company's first mobile game releases. The Famicom version of the game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the "Famicom Mini" series, released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Famicom; this version was also released in North America and Europe under the "Classic NES Series" label. Namco Networks released "Pac-Man" for BREW mobile devices in 2005. The arcade original was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2006, featuring achievements and online leaderboards. In 2009 a version for iOS devices was published; this release was later rebranded as "Pac-Man + Tournaments" in 2013, featuring new mazes and leaderboards. The NES version was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007. A Roku version was released in 2011, alongside a port of the Game Boy release for the 3DS Virtual Console. "Pac-Man" was one of four titles released under the "Arcade Game Series" brand, which was published for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016. In 2021, according to Nintendo Direct, it was announced that Hamster Corporation would release "Pac-Man", along with "Xevious", for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as part of their "Arcade Archives" series, marking the first two Namco games to be included as part of the series.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" is included in many Namco compilations, including "Namco Museum Vol. 1" (1995), "Namco Museum 64" (1999), "Namco Museum Battle Collection" (2005), "Namco Museum DS" (2007), "Namco Museum Essentials" (2009), and "Namco Museum Megamix" (2010). In 1996, it was re-released for arcades as part of "Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2", alongside "Dig Dug", "Rally-X" and special "Arrangement" remakes of all three titles. Microsoft included "Pac-Man" in "Microsoft Return of Arcade" (1995) as a way to help attract video game companies to their Windows 95 operating system. Namco released the game in the third volume of "Namco History" in Japan in 1998. The 2001 Game Boy Advance compilation "Pac-Man Collection" compiles "Pac-Man", "Pac-Mania", "Pac-Attack" and "Pac-Man Arrangement" onto one cartridge. "Pac-Man" is also a hidden extra in the arcade game "Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981" (2001). A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that featured "Pac-Man" as the centerpiece. "" (1993) and "Pac-Man World 2" (2002) have "Pac-Man" as an unlockable extra. Alongside the Xbox 360 remake "Pac-Man Championship Edition", it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 as part of "Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions". The 2010 Wii game "Pac-Man Party" and its 2011 3DS remake also include "Pac-Man" as a bonus game, alongside the arcade versions of "Dig Dug" and "Galaga". In 2014, "Pac-Man" was included in the compilation title "Pac-Man Museum" for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, alongside several other "Pac-Man" games. The NES version is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition.


title: Pac-Man

text: Upon its North American debut at AMOA 1980, the game initially received a mild response. "Play Meter" magazine previewed the game and called it "a cute game which appears to grow on players, something which cute games are not prone to do." They said there's "more to the game than at first appears" but criticized the sound as a drawback, saying it's "good for awhile, then becomes annoying." Upon release, the game exceeded expectations with wide critical and commercial success.


title: Pac-Man

text: When it was first released in Japan, "Pac-Man" was initially only a modest success; Namco's own "Galaxian" (1979) had quickly outdone the game in popularity, due to the predominately male player base being familiar with its shooting gameplay as opposed to "Pac-Man"s cute characters and maze-chase theme. "Pac-Man" eventually became very successful in Japan, where it went on to be Japan's highest-grossing arcade game of 1980 according to the annual "" charts, dethroning "Space Invaders" (1978) which had topped the annual charts for two years in a row and leading to a shift in the Japanese market away from space shooters towards action games featuring comical characters. "Pac-Man" was also Japan's fourth highest-grossing arcade game of 1981.


title: Pac-Man

text: In North America, Midway had limited expectations prior to release, initially manufacturing 5,000 units for the US, before it caught on immediately upon release there. Some arcades purchased entire rows of "Pac-Man" cabinets. It soon became a nationwide success. Upon release in 1980, it was earning about per week in the United States. Within one year, more than 100,000 arcade units had been sold which grossed more than in quarters. It overtook Atari's "Asteroids" (1979) as the best-selling arcade game in the country, and surpassed the film "" (1977) with more than in revenue. "Pac-Man" was America's highest-grossing arcade game of 1981, and second highest game of 1982. By 1982, it was estimated to have had 30 million active players across the United States. The game's success was partly driven by its popularity among female audiences, becoming "the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players" according to Midway's Stan Jarocki, with "Pac-Man" being the favorite coin-op game among female gamers through 1982. Among the nine arcade games covered by "How to Win Video Games" (1982), "Pac-Man" was the only one with females accounting for a majority of players.


title: Pac-Man

text: The number of arcade units sold had tripled to 400,000 by 1982, receiving an estimated total of between seven billion coins and . In a 1983 interview, Nakamura said that though he did expect "Pac-Man" to be successful, "I never thought it would be this big." "Pac-Man" is the best-selling arcade game of all time (surpassing "Space Invaders"), with total estimated earnings ranging from coins and $3.5 billion ($7.7 billion adjusted for inflation) to ( adjusted for inflation) in arcades. "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" also topped the US "RePlay" cocktail arcade cabinet charts for 23 months, from February 1982 through 1983 up until February 1984.


title: Pac-Man

text: The Atari 2600 version of the game sold over copies, making it the console's best-selling title. In addition, Coleco's tabletop mini-arcade unit sold over units in 1982, the "Pac-Man" Nelsonic Game Watch sold more than 500,000 units the same year, the Family Computer (Famicom) version and its 2004 Game Boy Advance re-release sold a combined 598,000 copies in Japan, the Atari 5200 version sold cartridges between 1986 and 1988, the Atari XE computer version sold copies in 1986 and 1990, Thunder Mountain's 1986 budget release for home computers received a Diamond certification from the Software Publishers Association in 1989 for selling over 500,000 copies, and mobile phone ports have sold over paid downloads . "II Computing" also listed the Atarisoft port tenth on the magazine's list of top Apple II games as of late 1985, based on sales and market-share data. , all versions of "Pac-Man" are estimated to have grossed a total of more than in revenue.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" was awarded "Best Commercial Arcade Game" at the 1982 Arcade Awards. "Pac-Man" also won the Video Software Dealers Association's VSDA Award for Best Videogame. In 2001, "Pac-Man" was voted the greatest video game of all time by a Dixons poll in the UK. The "Killer List of Videogames" listed "Pac-Man" as the most popular game of all time. The list aggregator site Playthatgame currently ranks Pac-Man as the #53rd top game of all-time & game of the year.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" is considered by many to be one of the most influential video games of all time; The game established the maze chase game genre, the first video game with power-ups, and the individual ghosts have deterministic artificial intelligence (AI) that reacts to player actions. "Pac-Man" is considered one of the first video games to have demonstrated the potential of characters in the medium; its title character was the first original gaming mascot, it increased the appeal of video games with female audiences, and it was gaming's first broad licensing success. It is often cited as the first game with cutscenes (in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other), though actually "Space Invaders Part II" employed a similar style of between-level intermissions in 1979.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" was a turning point for the arcade video game industry, which had previously been dominated by space shoot 'em ups since "Space Invaders" (1978). "Pac-Man" popularized a genre of "character-led" action games, leading to a wave of character action games involving player characters in 1981, such as Nintendo's prototypical platform game "Donkey Kong", Konami's "Frogger" and Universal Entertainment's "Lady Bug". "Pac-Man" was one of the first popular non-shooting action games, defining key elements of the genre such as "parallel visual processing" which requires simultaneously keeping track of multiple entities, including the player's location, the enemies, and the energizers.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Maze chase" games exploded on home computers after the release of "Pac-Man". Some of them appeared before official ports and garnered more attention from consumers, and sometimes lawyers, as a result. These include "Taxman" (1981) and "Snack Attack" (1982) for the Apple II, "Jawbreaker" (1981) for the Atari 8-bit family, "Scarfman" (1981) for the TRS-80, and "K.C. Munchkin!" (1981) for the Odyssey². Namco themselves produced several other maze chase games, including "Rally-X" (1980), "Dig Dug" (1982), "Exvania" (1992), and "Tinkle Pit" (1994). Atari sued Philips for creating "K.C. Munchkin" in the case "Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp.", leading to "Munchkin" being pulled from store shelves under court order. No major competitors emerged to challenge "Pac-Man" in the maze-chase subgenre.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" also inspired 3D variants of the concept, such as "Monster Maze" (1982), "Spectre" (1982), and early first-person shooters such as "MIDI Maze" (1987; which also had similar character designs). John Romero credited "Pac-Man" as the game that had the biggest influence on his career; "Wolfenstein 3D" includes a "Pac-Man" level from a first-person perspective. Many post-"Pac-Man" titles include power-ups that briefly turn the tables on the enemy. The game's artificial intelligence inspired programmers who later worked for companies like Bethesda.


title: Pac-Man

text: Guinness World Records has awarded the "Pac-Man" series eight records in "Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008", including "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game". On June 3, 2010, at the NLGD Festival of Games, the game's creator, Toru Iwatani, officially received the certificate from Guinness World Records for "Pac-Man" having had the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed worldwide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the "Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008", but finally actually awarded in 2010. In 2009, "Guinness World Records" listed Pac-Man as the most recognizable video game character in the United States, recognized by 94% of the population, above Mario who was recognized by 93% of the population. In 2015, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted "Pac-Man" to its World Video Game Hall of Fame. The Pac-Man character and game series became an icon of video game culture during the 1980s.


title: Pac-Man

text: The game has inspired various real-life recreations, involving real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan set a Guinness World Record for "Largest "Pac-Man" Game" in 2004.


title: Pac-Man

text: The business term "Pac-Man defense" in mergers and acquisitions refers to a hostile takeover target that attempts to reverse the situation and instead acquire its attempted acquirer, a reference to "Pac-Man"s energizers. The "Pac-Man renormalization" is named for a cosmetic resemblance to the character, in the mathematical study of the Mandelbrot set. The game's popularity has also led to "Pac-Man" being adopted as a nickname, such as by boxer Manny Pacquiao and the American football player Adam Jones.


title: Pac-Man

text: On August 21, 2016, in the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, during a video which showcases Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics, a small segment shows Pac-Man and the ghosts racing and eating dots on a running track.


title: Pac-Man

text: A wide variety of "Pac-Man" merchandise have been marketed with the character's image. By 1982, Midway had about 95-105 licensees selling "Pac-Man" merchandise, including major companies, such as AT&T selling a "Pac-Man" telephone. There were more than 500 "Pac-Man" related products.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" themed merchandise sales had exceeded ( adjusted for inflation) in the US by 1982. "Pac-Man" related merchandise products included bumper stickers, jewellery, accessories (such as a $20,000 "Ms. Pac-Man" choker with 14 karat gold), bicycles, breakfast cereals, popsicles, t-shirts, toys, handheld electronic game imitations, and pasta.


title: Pac-Man

text: The "Pac-Man" animated television series produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC from 1982 to 1983. It was the highest-rated Saturday morning cartoon show in the US during late 1982.


title: Pac-Man

text: A computer-generated animated series titled "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures" aired on Disney XD in June 2013, and also on Discovery Family in November 2019.


title: Pac-Man

text: The Buckner & Garcia song "Pac-Man Fever" (1981) went to No. 9 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 charts, and received a Gold certification for more than 1 million records sold by 1982, and a total of 2.5 million copies sold as of 2008. More than one million copies of the group's "Pac-Man Fever" album (1982) were sold.


title: Pac-Man

text: In 1982, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of "Taxman" by the Beatles as "Pac-Man". It was eventually released in 2017 as part of "". In 1992, Aphex Twin (with the name Power-Pill) released "Pac-Man", a techno album which consists mostly of samples from the game.


title: Pac-Man

text: The character appears in the music video for Bloodhound Gang's "Mope", released in 2000. Here, the character is portrayed as a cocaine addict.


title: Pac-Man

text: On July 20, 2020, Gorillaz and ScHoolboy Q, released a track entitled "PAC-MAN" as a part of Gorillaz' Song Machine series to commemorate the game's 40th anniversary, with the music video depicting the band's frontman, 2-D, playing a Gorillaz-themed Pac-Man arcade game.


title: Pac-Man

text: The Pac-Man character appears in the film "Pixels" (2015), with Denis Akiyama playing series creator Toru Iwatani. Iwatani makes a cameo at the beginning of the film as an arcade technician. "Pac-Man" is referenced and makes an appearance in the 2017 film, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2", and the video game, "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy". The game, the character, and the ghosts all also appear in the film "Wreck-It Ralph", as well as the sequel "Ralph Breaks the Internet".


title: Pac-Man

text: In "" where Kirito and his friends beat a virtual reality game called "PAC-Man 2026", which is loosely based on "Pac-Man 256". In the Japanese tokusatsu film "Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders", a Pac-Man-like character is the main villain.


title: Pac-Man

text: The 2018 film "Relaxer" uses "Pac-Man" as a strong plot element in the story of a 1999 couch-bound man who attempts to beat the game (and encounters the famous Level 256 glitch) before the year 2000 problem occurs.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" is referenced in a 2018 Black Mirror interactive film called . In the movie, the character Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) begins to tell Stefan about "Pac-Man" and how the game has a much deeper meaning. The conspiracy is that choice and free will is an illusion. Colin’s theory is that Pac (P.A.C.) stands for Program And Control. "Pac-Man" is “Program And Control Man” and a metaphor of someone being chased by their own demons, leaving them unable to do anything except consume to no end. Because, if they don’t, then they’ll be consumed. A cool conspiracy, but likely untrue.


title: Pac-Man

text: Various attempts for a feature film based on Pac-Man have been planned since the peak of the original game's popularity. Following the release of Ms. Pac-Man, a feature film was being developed, but never reached an agreement. In 2008, a live-action film based on the series was in development at Crystal Sky. In 2022, plans for a live-action Pac-Man film were revived at Wayfarer Studios, based on an idea by Chuck Williams.


title: Pac-Man

text: In 1982, Milton Bradley released a board game based on "Pac-Man". Players move up to four Pac-Man characters (traditional yellow plus red, green, and blue) plus two ghosts as per the throws of a pair of dice. The two ghost pieces were randomly packed with one of four colors.


title: Pac-Man

text: Sticker manufacturer Fleer included rub-off game cards with its "Pac-Man" stickers. The card packages contain a "Pac-Man" style maze with all points along the path hidden with opaque coverings. From the starting position, the player moves around the maze while scratching off the coverings to score points.


title: Pac-Man

text: A "Pac-Man"-themed downloadable content package for "Minecraft" was released in 2020 in commemoration of the game's 40th anniversary. This pack introduced a new ghost called 'Creepy', based on the Creeper.


title: Pac-Man

text: A perfect score on the original "Pac-Man" arcade game is 3,333,360 points, achieved when the player obtains the maximum score on the first 255 levels by eating every dot, energizer, fruit and blue ghost without losing a man, then uses all six men to obtain the maximum possible number of points on level 256.


title: Pac-Man

text: The first person to achieve a publicly witnessed and verified perfect score without manipulating the game's hardware to freeze play was Billy Mitchell, who performed the feat on July 3, 1999. Some recordkeeping organizations removed Mitchell's score after a 2018 investigation by Twin Galaxies concluded that two unrelated "Donkey Kong" score performances submitted by Mitchell had not used an unmodified original circuit board. As of July 2020, seven other gamers had achieved perfect "Pac-Man" scores on original arcade hardware. The world record for the fastest completion of a perfect score, according to Twin Galaxies, is currently held by David Race with a time of 3 hours, 28 minutes, 49 seconds.


title: Pac-Man

text: In December 1982, eight-year-old boy Jeffrey R. Yee received a letter from United States president Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a world record score of 6,131,940 points, possible only if he had passed level 256. In September 1983, Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies at the time, took the U.S. National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit gamers who claimed the ability to pass that level. None demonstrated such an ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could pass level 256 before January 1, 2000. The offer expired with the prize unclaimed.


title: Pac-Man

text: After announcing in 2018 that it would no longer recognize the first perfect score on "Pac-Man", Guinness World Records reversed that decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's 1999 performance on June 18, 2020.


title: Pac-Man

text: "Pac-Man" inspired a long series of sequels, remakes, and re-imaginings, and is one of the longest-running video game franchises in history. The first of these was "Ms. Pac-Man", developed by the American-based General Computer Corporation and published by Midway in 1982. The character's gender was changed to female in response to "Pac-Man"s popularity with women, with new mazes, moving bonus items, and faster gameplay being implemented to increase its appeal. "Ms. Pac-Man" is one of the best-selling arcade games in North America, where "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" had become the most successful machines in the history of the amusement arcade industry. Legal concerns raised over who owned the game caused "Ms. Pac-Man" to become owned by Namco, who assisted in production of the game. "Ms. Pac-Man" inspired its own line of remakes, including "Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness" (2000), and "", and is also included in many Namco and "Pac-Man" collections for consoles.


title: Pac-Man

text: Namco's own follow-up to the original was "Super Pac-Man", released in 1982. This was followed by the Japan-exclusive "Pac & Pal" in 1983. Midway produced many other "Pac-Man" sequels during the early 1980s, including "Pac-Man Plus" (1982), "Jr. Pac-Man" (1983), "Baby Pac-Man" (1983), and "Professor Pac-Man" (1984). Other games include the isometric "Pac-Mania" (1987), the side-scrollers "Pac-Land" (1984), "" (1994), and "Pac-In-Time" (1995), the 3D platformer "Pac-Man World" (1999), and the puzzle games "Pac-Attack" (1991) and "Pac-Pix" (2005). Iwatani designed "Pac-Land" and "Pac-Mania", both of which remain his favorite games in the series. "Pac-Man Championship Edition", published for the Xbox 360 in 2007, was Iwatani's final game before leaving the company. Its neon visuals and fast-paced gameplay was met with acclaim, leading to the creation of "Pac-Man Championship Edition DX" (2010) and "Pac-Man Championship Edition 2" (2016).


title: Pac-Man

text: Coleco's tabletop Mini-Arcade versions of the game yielded 1.5 million units sold in 1982. Nelsonic Industries produced a "Pac-Man" LCD wristwatch game with a simplified maze also in 1982.


title: Pac-Man

text: Namco Networks sold a downloadable Windows PC version of "Pac-Man" in 2009 which also includes an enhanced mode which replaces all of the original sprites with the sprites from "Pac-Man Championship Edition". Namco Networks made a downloadable bundle which includes its PC version of "Pac-Man" and its port of "Dig Dug" called "". In 2010, Namco Bandai announced the release of the game on Windows Phone 7 as an Xbox Live game.


title: Pac-Man

text: For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game's release. The Google Doodle version of "Pac-Man" was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2010, so Google later gave the game its own page.


title: Pac-Man

text: In April 2011, Soap Creative published "World's Biggest Pac-Man", working together with Microsoft and Namco-Bandai to celebrate "Pac-Man"s 30th anniversary. It is a multiplayer browser-based game with user-created, interlocking mazes.


title: Pac-Man

text: For April Fools' Day in 2017, Google created a playable of the game on Google Maps where users were able to play the game using the map onscreen.


title: Pac-Man

text: The original arcade system board had one Z80A processor, running at 3.072 Mhz, 16 kbyte of ROM and 3 kbyte of static RAM. Of those 1 kbyte each was for video ram, color ram and generic program ram. There were 2 custom chips on the board: the 285 sync bus controller and the 284 video ram addresser, but daughterboards made only from standard parts were also widely used instead. Video output was (analog) component video with composite sync. A futher 8 kbyte of character rom was used for characters, background tiles and sprites and an additional 1 kbit of static ram was used to hold 4bpp sprite data for one scanline and was written to during the horizontal blanking period preceeding each line. Sprite size was always 16x16 pixels, one of the 4 colors per pixel was for transparency (of the background).


title: Pac-Man

text: The monitor was installed 90 degree rotated clockwise, the first visible scanline started in the top right corner and ends in the bottom right corner. The horizontal blanking period, which starts after the level indicator at the bottom is drawn, had a duration of 96 pixel clock ticks, enough time to fetch 4 bytes of sprite data per 16 clock ticks for 6 sprites. Although attribute memory exists for them, sprite 0 and 7 are unusable, their pixel fetch timing window occupied by the bottom level indicator (which just precedes the hblank) for sprite 0 and two rows of characters at the top of the screen, which just follow the hblank, for sprite 7.


title: WWE 2K22

text: WWE 2K22 is a 2022 professional wrestling sports video game developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Sports. It is the twenty-second overall installment of the video game series based on WWE, the ninth game under the "WWE 2K" banner, and the successor to 2019's "WWE 2K20". It was released on March 11, 2022, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.


title: WWE 2K22

text: "WWE 2K"s MyCareer was rebranded as MyRISE and focused on separate stories for both male and female wrestlers. Using created characters, players can form alliances, make enemies, and branch into subplots based upon the players choices.


title: WWE 2K22

text: 2K Showcase Mode returned as Showcase, featuring cover superstar Rey Mysterio, allowing players to play through the biggest moments of his WWE career. The 2K Showcase mode incorporates new features and updates. By progressing through, players are able to unlock new characters, attires, and arenas. At IGN Fan Fest 2022, a gameplay of the match between Rey Mysterio and Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam 2009 featured a transition method between in game to real-time action, using both in-game and archived audio, unlike in previous games. The game features a new mode called MyFACTION. In it, players are able to build a wrestling stable by collecting, managing, and upgrading WWE wrestlers with regular updates and weekly events. MyFACTION features player cards from throughout WWE's history.


title: WWE 2K22

text: Universe Mode returned with several updates, including the ability to change camera angles while spectating matches. Other new features include playing as a single superstar, focusing only on their matches and storylines. MyGM, formerly known as GM Mode, returned to the series for the first time since 2007's "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008". Players can choose between Sonya Deville, Adam Pearce, William Regal, Shane McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, or a custom character to take control of one of WWE's four brands: Raw, SmackDown, NXT, or NXT UK. Players can book wrestling shows in high school gyms and on primetime television, draft superstars, manage contracts, and control costs, while trying to create the premier WWE brand.


title: WWE 2K22

text: Community creations in the creation suite have cross-platform support for users who are signed in to a verified 2K account. Custom images can also be used in character select screens, which allowing the player to put their own photo(s) on screen.


title: WWE 2K22

text: After "WWE 2K20" received negative reviews from critics, "WWE 2K" franchise executive producer Patrick Gilmore promised that the next installment would rely more on the quality of the game. The game was officially announced after a teaser trailer, featuring Cesaro and Rey Mysterio, aired during WrestleMania 37 in April 2021, with a "Hit Different" tagline. The announcement came nearly a year after 2K Sports canceled a planned "WWE 2K21" title.


title: WWE 2K22

text: During the July 23, 2021, episode of "SmackDown", commentator Michael Cole revealed that "WWE 2K22" would feature a rebuilt game engine and smoother controls; this was later confirmed by sources close to 2K. The second teaser trailer aired during SummerSlam in August 2021, announcing a release date of March 2022.


title: WWE 2K22

text: On November 18, 2021, a "Hit List" trailer was released, highlighting ten specific features emphasizing the game's tagline. In the trailer, it was revealed that GM Mode (called MyGM) would be making a return to the series for the first time since 2007's "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008", and that the game would feature redesigned gameplay controls.


title: WWE 2K22

text: On February 23, 2022, singer Machine Gun Kelly was announced as executive producer, accompanied by a short trailer which involved Kelly and WWE legend The Undertaker. The baseline soundtrack includes songs from artists such as Machine Gun Kelly, Yungblud, Bert McCracken, Wu-Tang Clan, KennyHoopla, Motörhead, Poppy, Royal Blood, Bring Me the Horizon, The Weeknd, Turnstile, Asking Alexandria, and Bad Bunny.


title: WWE 2K22

text: On January 20, 2022, a trailer for the game was released alongside the release date of March 11, 2022. Rey Mysterio was announced as the main cover star for the Deluxe and Standard editions.


title: WWE 2K22

text: The game has three editions: the "nWo 4-Life" edition, the "Deluxe" edition, and the "Standard" edition. The "nWo 4-Life" and "Deluxe" editions were released on March 8, three days ahead of the release of the "Standard" edition on March 11.


title: WWE 2K22

text: Downloadable content (DLC) packs are available through the Season Pass as well as available to purchase individually. The first DLC pack is the "Banzai Pack" that launched in April 26, 2022, and included Yokozuna, Umaga, Rikishi, Omos, and Kacy Catanzaro. On May 17, 2022, the "Most Wanted Pack" launched, which adds Cactus Jack, The Boogeyman, Vader, Ilja Dragunov, and Indi Hartwell. On June 7, 2022, the "Stand Back Pack" launched adding The Hurricane, Stacy Keibler, A-Kid, and Wes Lee (Nash Carter was scheduled to be in the pack, but was cut when he was released from WWE in early April.). On June 28, 2022, the "Clowning Around Pack" launched and included Doink the Clown, Ronda Rousey, The British Bulldog, Mr. T, Doudrop, and Rick Boogs. The final pack, titled "The Whole Dam Pack", launched on July 19, 2022 and included Rob Van Dam, Logan Paul, Machine Gun Kelly, L. A. Knight, Xia Li, Commander Azeez, and Sarray. Additionally, both The Undertaker Immortal Pack (featuring a "Phantom" masked Undertaker from 1995, the "Lord of Darkness" Undertaker from 1999, and the Undertaker from his match vs. AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36), previously released as preorder only, as well as the nWo 4-Life DLC (featuring playable


title: WWE 2K22

text: nWo versions of "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Syxx, and Eric Bischoff, the Bash at the Beach '96 and nWo Souled Out arenas, and the nWo Wolfpac Championship) were released as additional standalone DLC packs.


title: WWE 2K22

text: The NXT 2.0 arena, along with several new create-a-superstar parts, were added as free DLC through the 1.09 patch.


title: WWE 2K22

text: Several MyRise exclusive superstars, along with additional new create-a-superstar parts, were added as another free DLC through the 1.12 patch. These included: Alexa Bliss from 2020, Dominik Dijakovic, King Booker, King Corbin, pre-A.S.H. Nikki Cross, Shawn Michaels from 2018, and pre-King Shinsuke Nakamura.


title: WWE 2K22

text: "WWE 2K22" received "generally favorable reviews" for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S versions and "mixed or average reviews" for the Windows version according to review aggregator Metacritic respectively. Critics generally regarded "2K22" as a massive improvement from its predecessor as well as one of the series' best modern entries despite its issues.


title: WWE 2K22

text: Zoey Handley of "Destructoid" praised the new modes and improvements made to the game engine, modified physics, and AI but felt that "On the surface, we’re looking at exactly the same game... "WWE 2K22" is an improvement, it doesn't feel like a step in the right direction", and criticized the game's unintuitive customization suit, janky gameplay, and desire to remain a competitive simulation. Marcus Stewart of "Game Informer" called "2K22" "the most entertaining - and most of all, playable - WWE game in some time", and lauded its more polished, arcade-style gameplay, improved character models, smoother animations, and new modes, while taking minor issue with unstable online play, occasionally unresponsive controls, and some overly complicated maneuvers. Richard Wakeling of "GameSpot" thought favorably of the revamped in-ring action, increased defensive options, and the MyRISE mode but disliked the frustrating multi-person matches, shallow MyGM mode, and the roster omissions present in the Showcase mode. "GamesRadar+"s Ben Wilson similarly wrote positively about the combo-heavy wrestling mechanics, addictive MyFaction mode, and called the facelikenesses "the best this series has seen", but thought too many issues made a return from prior entries and that the MyGM mode lacked depth. Mitchell Saltzman of "IGN" stated, "while ["2K22" is] far from a complete ground-up rebuild, it’s quite possibly the biggest leap forward the series has ever seen", and lauded the visual overhaul, removal of bugs, improved combat, and the depth present in the MyRISE and MyGM modes. "Push Square"s Ben Potter gave the title 7 stars out of 10 and wrote, "...skipping "2K21" and delaying the release by five months may have caused the roster to be largely outdated, but the game is stable, plays great, and is practically bursting at the seams with content." Chris Jarrard of "Shacknews" reviewed the game more negatively and largely panned the outdated roster, half-baked modes, lack of a next-gen visual upgrade, and the Creation Suite's navigability and omissions.


title: WWE 2K22

text: "WWE 2K22" debut as #2 in digital video game sales chart in the United Kingdom, overtaking "Gran Turismo 7". Digital launch sales were also 390% higher than "WWE 2K20", and overall game sales were double of the previous installment.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Ronald Wayne Van Zant (January 15, 1948 – October 20, 1977) was an American singer, best known as the original lead vocalist, primary lyricist and a founding member of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He is the older brother of current Lynyrd Skynyrd lead vocalist Johnny Van Zant and Donnie Van Zant, the founder and vocalist of the rock band .38 Special.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: He was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, to Lacy Austin (1915–2004) and Marion Virginia (née Hicks) Van Zant (1929–2000). Ronnie aspired to be many things before finding his love for music. A fan of boxer Muhammad Ali, he considered a career in the ring, and while playing American Legion baseball dreamed of Minor League success.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Van Zant formed a band called My Backyard late in the summer of 1964 with friends and schoolmates Allen Collins (guitar), Gary Rossington (guitar), Larry Junstrom (bass), and Bob Burns (drums). The quintet went through several names before deciding on Lynyrd Skynyrd, as a mock tribute to their high school gym teacher Leonard Skinner at Robert E. Lee High School, which all band members had except Collins. Skinner's strict enforcement against long hair inspired the members to name their band after him.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: The band rise to prominence began in 1973 with the release of their debut album, "(Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)", which had a string of hits that included "I Ain't the One", "Tuesday's Gone", "Gimme Three Steps", "Simple Man", and what became their signature, "Free Bird", later dedicated to the late Duane Allman of The Allman Brothers Band.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: The band also gained exposure when they were selected as the opening act for the US portion of The Who's Quadrophenia tour.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Lynyrd Skynyrd's biggest hit single was "Sweet Home Alabama" from their follow-up album "Second Helping" (1974)"," an answer to Neil Young's songs "Alabama" and "Southern Man". Young's song "Powderfinger" on the 1979 album "Rust Never Sleeps" was reportedly written for Skynyrd, and Van Zant is pictured on the cover of "Street Survivors" wearing a T-shirt of Young's "Tonight's the Night" and in the 2 July 1977 Oakland Coliseum concert (excerpted in "Freebird... The Movie").


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: On October 20, 1977, a plane carrying the band between shows from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ran out of fuel outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. The passengers had been informed about potential problems with the Convair CV-240 and were told to brace for a crash. Van Zant died on impact from head injuries suffered after the aircraft struck a tree. Bandmates Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines, along with assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray, were also killed. The rest of the band was seriously injured. Van Zant was 29 years old.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: According to former bandmate Artimus Pyle and family members, Van Zant frequently discussed his mortality. Pyle recalls a moment when Lynyrd Skynyrd was in Japan: "Ronnie and I were in Tokyo, Japan, and Ronnie told me that he would never live to see thirty and that he would go out with his boots on, in other words, on the road. I said, 'Ronnie, don't talk like that,' but the man knew his destiny." Van Zant's father, Lacy, said, "He said to me many times, 'Daddy, I'll never be 30 years old.' I said, 'Why are you talking this junk? You will never be 30 years old?' and he said, 'Daddy, that's my limit.'" Van Zant's father later noted that, "God was a jealous god. Taking him for reasons I don't know." Ex-bandmate Ed King also reported hearing Van Zant saying he would never live to be 30 years old, saying Van Zant said it so often that he "had gotten sick of hearing it". Lynyrd Skynyrd backup singer JoJo Billingsley recalled that Van Zant had begun referring to himself as "The Mississippi Kid" in the months before his death despite being born and raised in Florida. She noted that, eerily, Van Zant's only connection to Mississippi was the fact that he would ultimately die there.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Ex-Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Ed King recalls the intense sadness of Van Zant's funeral, noting that people in attendance were so overcome with grief that they were literally falling down. Van Zant was buried in Orange Park, Florida, in 1977. His body was relocated after vandals broke into his tomb and that of bandmate Steve Gaines on June 29, 2000. Van Zant's casket was pulled out and dropped on the ground. The bag containing Gaines' remains was torn open and some scattered onto the grass. Their mausoleums at Orange Park remain as memorials for fans to visit.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Ten years later, the new location of their interment was accidentally revealed by a Craigslist ad. A family selling two plots they decided not to retain, ran a Craigslist ad and stated the plots were in the Jacksonville Memory Gardens Cemetery in Orange Park, Florida, adjacent to Ronnie Van Zant's tomb.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: According to the cemetery listing website Find-a-Grave, Van Zant was reburied at Riverside Memorial Park in Jacksonville, near the grave of his father Lacy and mother Marion. Both his current resting place and the empty mausoleum in Orange Park are listed, with the statement: "Due to the June 29th, 2000 vandalization of his original grave site, his casket was moved to this new location and buried in a massive underground concrete burial vault. To open the vault would require a tractor with a lift capacity of several tons. It is also patrolled by security."


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Van Zant married Nadine Inscoe on January 2, 1967. Around this time, Van Zant also worked at his brother-in-law's auto parts store, Morris Auto Parts in Jacksonville. It was said that Van Zant was a virtual catalog of automotive parts, and had a near photographic memory for them. The couple had a daughter, Tammy, before divorcing in 1969; Tammy would become a musician. He married Judy Seymour in 1972 after meeting her at The Comic Book Club through Gary Rossington in 1969. (The club closed in 1975 and is now a parking garage.) They had one daughter, Melody, born in 1976, and remained married until his death in 1977. Judy Van Zant-Jenness founded Freebird Live in 1999, a music venue located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. It featured Lynyrd Skynyrd memorabilia and was co-owned by Melody Van Zant. Judy married Jim Jenness and founded and ran The Freebird Foundation until its dissolution in 2001.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Van Zant was an avid fisherman. He enjoyed baseball, and was a fan of the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees. As a child, he played American Legion baseball and aspired to play professional baseball, as he recalled in a 1975 interview.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Van Zant had several run-ins with the law, most notably in 1975, when he was arrested for hurling a table out of a second-story hotel room window.