by Oscar Portillo

 

Pac-Man 256 is an endless runner, developed by hipster whale and 3 sprockets. And published by Bandai Namco. The game was originally released as a free to play title for IOS and Android in August of 2015. A port made its way to consoles in June of 2016 for Playstation 4, Xbox One and the PC adding local multiplayer. The game garnered enough praise that it won best mobile game at the Game Awards in 2015. For some clarity, the number 256 is a reference to a glitch in the original 1980 Pac-Man game. Where the game would go up to level 256 and the game would stop functioning. Essentially, making the game impossible to beat. Interesting to note the developers for the original game wanted Pac-Man to go on forever. In a funny way, in our society, Pac-Man has gone on forever.

 

Pac-Man 256 drops players in an endless maze. Where the player has to eat dots, power ups and avoid ghosts. Also the player must stay ahead of an oncoming glitch that creeps up from the bottom of the screen. In my view this is the best part of Pac-Man 256. This aspect adds urgency to the game not seen in the original or Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, which I played for the Playstation 3. The
player has to move up the board, while the board changes colors, paying homage to the past games. As with any Pac-Man power pellets are the order of the day. These become essential later on where ghosts are patrolling corridors in file or when you encounter a group of ghosts.

 

There are twenty one power ups to unlock in total. And most power ups have eight levels for the power up to get stronger. Once you unlock a power up, you can equip three power ups at the same time to make some truly unique load outs. This load out feature allows for experimenting to see what the player is comfortable with. As of this writing I am rolling with stealth, lasers and the magnet, this particular load out makes my Pac-Man feel unique to my playstyle.