As a gamer in his early twenties and whom didn’t even own a video game console until the late-90’s, it is hard to feel much nostalgia towards the Pac-Man franchise which served as a gaming staple on both the earliest generations of video game consoles and within arcades. While the franchise seems to be re-branding itself with the younger audience through a morning cartoon series and an average platformer, Bandai Namco Games have respected its strong history through releasing Pac-Man Museum, a compilation of games in the franchise from the original 1980 arcade classic to the 2011 arcade release of Pac-Man Battle Royale.
A sizable chunk of Pac-Man Museum consists of titles released in the 80’s and early 90’s that to some degree can come across as being the same albeit with different visual styles and other minor gameplay mechanics that honestly don’t contribute much to the overall experience. However there are a couple of additional titles from the early years that do stray a bit further from the classic Pac-Man style of gameplay even if doing so unsuccessfully. Two of the most notable are Pac-Land which attempts to merge 2D side-scrolling platformer mechanics and Pac-Attack which comes across as a fiddly Pac-Man reimagining of Dr. Mario or Tetris. Neither seemed to hold my interest for more than a single round.
Where this pack’s true value lies is in the more recent iterations that pay proper homage to the original games while offering brand new experiences. While they opted not to release the previously released DX edition, the original 2007 Pac-Man Championship Edition makes an appearance in this collection. For those not familiar with this instalment, it brings faster paced gameplay with regenerating power pellets / dots, increased challenge and a time limit to survive. This was the one title in Pac-Man museum that I pooled most of my time into, and it seems to be the one game that could “woo” newcomers into checking out everything else the long-running franchise has to offer.
The main reason that many would be interested in Pac-Man Museum would be the inclusion of Pac-Man: Battle Royale, which has formerly been an arcade-exclusive instalment. This is the only game in the set that fully embraces multiplayer functionality, allowing up to four differently coloured Pac-Man to try and eat each other in a small arena while also being chased down by the obligatory four ghosts. It is fast paced and intense, however it is only really worthwhile playing if you have a few mates over… the CPU Pac-Man for single player mode is highly predictable.
For all the Pac-Man games featuring a scoring system, Museum has built-in leaderboard support for in addition to each game having their own “Stamp” achievement system and a wealth of gimmicky collectables to decorate a room with.
Overall Pac-Man Museum made for an enjoyable compilation of games highlighting the very best and potentially the most lacklustre from more than thirty years of eating bits and ghosts. Given its relatively inexpensive digital download price (and complementary download of Ms. Pac-Man for the month of March), it should offer plenty to incite nostalgia in fans from the 80’s and welcome newcomers to the gaming market with a healthy dose of retro.
