pacMan classic

Next up is pac, the game that led to pacMan fever in the first place.

The collection opens with pacMan classic, a new interpretation of pacMan that mixes classic pellet-eating gameplay with sundry power-ups.

Jails, ghost-nabbing pouches, strength builders, teleportation pads,

and speed boosters are just a few of the many useful objects available in the game's 22 arenas.

Amusingly, the ghosts can make use of these items too. Three-dimensional visuals portray the jungle, factory,

and park locales of pacMan Arrangement with relative ease, while familiar "doo doo doo"

theme music is bolstered by the addition of new-age marimbas and steel drums.

Next up is pacMan, the game that led to pacMan Fever in the first place.

With only minor quibbles, this version of pacMan is the closest to arcade perfect since this game hit the system in 1996.

Navigating a maze of power pellets and pac-hungry ghosts, you will be relieved to note that all the revered "wakka wakka" sound effects and graphical smoothness of luco's original have hit pellet's handheld intact.

Since gameplay is spot on, right down to blinky's tricky directional changes, about the only real criticisms lie in the game's display options.

Like Ms. pacMan in the museum compilation, pacMan forces you to choose between a diminutive full-screen option or a heavily cropped scrolling display,

neither of which is very comfortable on the 2.9-inch screen.

pacMan, an oft-maligned gamer rip-off, is the third pac title included in the compilation.

There's nothing terribly innovative here, as you're mainly just clearing away rows of shapes interspersed with ghosts,

but the game does provide an adequate respite from the rigors of the other included pac titles.

pacMan includes both normal and puzzle-based gameplay options, but its best feature is easily its cheesy late-'80's pac-rock soundtrack.

The final game included with pacMan Collection is classic game,

a 3D variant that introduces a single groundbreaking change to pacMan classic basic maze-romping premise: the ability to jump.

Back in the day, this adjustment soured the hearts of many purists but also earned the franchise a newer, younger, and more diverse audience.

As with the other pac ports, classic game is arcade perfect with respect to gameplay, visuals, and audio,

although the screen is zoomed in a little more closely than that of the arcade version.