[Playing…] Pac-Man VS

Pac-Man is one of the standards of classic video games and although today it is not as popular as in the past, it continues to appear in its own games (Pac-man the ghostly adventures) and outsiders (Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS).

Pac-man's appearance in smash bros It is not the only cooperation between Namco and Nintendo, since in the Gamecube era, Namco developed Nintendo character games, such as the arcades of Mario Kart (where the classic comecocos also appeared as a selectable character) or the musical games Donkey Konga.

In the midst of this environment of collaboration and collegiality, Shigeru Miyamoto developed a game with Pac-man to try to show the possibilities of the Game Boy Advance and Gamecube connection. The result was Pac-Man VS a game with a very basic concept, but tremendously fun.

When playing this game we will need a Game Boy Advance and its cable to connect it to GC and one controller for each extra player who wants to participate as a ghost, up to a maximum of 3. If there are not enough ghost players, those who are missing will be “transparent” ghosts that are totally harmless to Pac-man, but when touched by a ghost player they will become lethal to the Pac-Man and will share points and merits with the ghost that touched them. They become allies of the ghost team in general and the ghost that touched them in particular.

The player who has the Game Boy Advance as a controller You will control Pac-man and see an entire map on your screen, as if playing Pac-Man original, while the other players will control ghosts and see the game in 3D with a limited field of view and a small, schematic map of their position (but not Pac-man's).

If Pac-man is captured by a ghost, the game ends and the player who caught him will become Pac-man in the next game (which will have to be played using the Game Boy Advance). The player who controls Pac-man will have to try to complete the level or reach the victory points to win.

Victory points are chosen at the start of the game and all players maintain them from one game to the next, which can lead to situations such as several characters being about to achieve victory points and needing to capture Pac-man in order to play as him in the next level to win, thus ending the usual cooperation between ghosts. When a player loses, they are penalized by taking away victory points, which makes the competition even more raw.

In the game there are a few levels to play, changing the shape and number of super points that allow Pac-man to eat the ghosts.

Pac-Man VS it's a simple but very effective concept, is a fast, fun and easy-to-learn game that encourages both cooperation and competition and whose only fault is having included too many voices from Charles Martinet (the voice actor for Mario, Luigi and company) during the game, as they can become quite tiresome.

There are many games that used the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance connection in an original and fun way, but Pac-Man VS was created explicitly for that purpose and that's why it's so fun.

Pac-Man VS It was not sold as an individual game, instead it was included as a gift in some Namco games, such as Pac-Man World 2, I-Ninja either A: Racing, changing depending on the region where you buy the game. In later years, the game was included in Namco Museum DS and in Japan it can also be played from mobile devices.