Page 29 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #8

Key Feature(s): Taking a cue from Sega's Zaxxon, Pac-Mania uses a flashy, isometric perspective for its
four themed worlds. Three new ghosts have been added to the mix, and Pac-Man has a new jumping ability
that lets him leap over his pesky pursuers in a single bound.

What went wrong? Pac-Man finally returns to his ravenous roots (re: munching on dots while avoiding
ghosts), but the zoomed-in perspective means you can only see a portion of the maze at any given time.
Instead of quickly scanning the entire maze for potential escape routes, you have to react immediately to your
surroundings and hope for the best. The perspective is more a detriment to gameplay than an asset,
especially when there are eight or nine ghosts chasing you.

Key feature(s): After a nine-year hiatus in the arcades, Pac-Man returns as a virtual reality game. Pac-Man
VR has you moving through a 3D maze from a first-person perspective, using a handheld controller and the
goggle's head-tracking display to navigate your colorful surroundings. The game's maze features very short
walls, letting you see a generous portion of the layout instead of limiting your viewpoint. Play mechanics are
otherwise the same as the arcade original: guide Pac-Man through the maze to gobble up dots while avoiding
four ghosts. While Pac-Man VR features timed play, you earn additional seconds by filling a horizontal "extra
time" meter through eating dots and scoring points.

Key feature(s): Pac-Man is locked and loaded in this target shooting game, the third entry in Namco's
"Shooting Medal" series, which involves aiming a bright orange pistol at various formations of ghosts. The
more ghosts you shoot, the more tickets you'll earn to spend at the arcade's prize redemption center. Included
are four main stages and four bonus stages. Collect five of the same fruits or spell the word "jackpot" to access
bonus games.

Key feature(s): Pac-Man 25th Anniversary is a collection of three arcade blockbusters in one upright
cabinet: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Galaga. The Pac-Man featured in this coin-op compilation can be
played in its original 1980 form or a "speedier" version.

Key feature(s): Pac-Man: Battle Royale shares more than a few similarities with the excellent Pac-Man:
Championship Edition. The pulse-pounding music, rapidly changing mazes, and neon look are all borrowed
from the digitally distributed game, only now the main emphasis is on four-player simultaneous action.
Though there are dots to eat and ghosts to avoid, there is no score in Battle Royale, which is odd. The main
objective is to quickly eat power pellets, which supersize the player's Pac-Man (as in Super Pac-Man), giving
him free reign to gobble up the competition as well as any nearby ghosts. The first player to eliminate all

three rivals earns a win, and play resumes until a set number of lives are exhausted.

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