While Pac-Man fever may have abated in the 80s, the dot-gobbler remains an icon of videogame history. Bandai Namco is putting out a new collection of Pac-Man games called Pac-Man Museum+, which lets you play as Pac-Man playing Pac-Land, Pac & Pal, Pac-Attack, and yes, Pac-Man itself. (Okay, let’s restate that with a smaller pac of tongue twisters.)
Pac-Man Museum+ is a collection of 14 Pac-Man games, ranging from the arcade original up through modern iterations like Pac-Man 256. The games are tied together with a meta progression system, where completing challenges earns you coins that you can either drop into arcade machines or spend on decorations for your arcade. You can then explore that arcade as Pac-Man.
It’s a fun gimmick, but the real attractions are the games themselves. You’ve got the original Pac-Man (of course), the side-scroller-before-Mario-made-it-cool Pac-Land, the excellent Pac-Man Championship Edition, and the surprisingly entertaining Crossy Road follow-up Pac-Man 256.
There are some notable absences, though. Ms. Pac-Man is missing – it’s the superior follow-up to the arcade original, though it’s always been of sketchy canonicity given its origins as a mod kit. It’s also disappointing to see Pac-Man: Championship Edition here with no CE DX, which provided a much different spin on that modernised formula.
Pac-Man Museum+ is set to hit PC via Steam, as well as PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch, in early 2022. Here’s everything included:
- Pac-Man
- Super Pac-Man
- Pac & Pal
- Pac-Land
- Pac-Mania
- Pac-Attack
- Pac-In-Time
- Pac-Man Arrangement (Arcade)
- Pac-Man Arrangement (Console)
- Pac-Man: Championship Edition
- Pac Motos
- Pac ‘n Roll Remix
- Pac-Man Battle Royale
- Pac-Man 256
If you’ve not seen it before, Pac-Man Battle Royale predates the post-PUBG craze by several years, and isn’t what you’d generally call a battle royale game.
Because I know you’ll be searching for it in a second, here’s Pac-Man Fever.