PAC’N-JUMP review (iOS/Universal)

♫ “Tonight the city’s like a Pac Man board
I wanna know how many power pellets till I get to your door”

10 word description: Endless jumping; unlockable stages; many namco characters, music and sounds.

It's Pac-Man, but not as we know it

10 word review: Great themes and updated retro arcade styling; addictive jumping fun. 

Pac-Man is bouncing, travelling vertically. The maze walls are now platforms. Someone at Namco has been taking all the right drugs.

You will like this if you enjoy: Doodle Jump, Mega Jump, Froggy Jump, etc.; Namco’s original 80’s arcade games.

There are 3 control methods. And screen shots don't do this game any justice.

The good news: It’s quite surprising how much fun this game is. Combining retro arcade characters and themes with a proven (ok, clichéd) iOS game genre really does work well.

The bad news: There isn’t any, really. Ok, you have to be completely above a platform in order to land on it, and sometimes you think you’ve landed on one and you haven’t… but you get used to this in about 10 seconds.

Stage 2 has a Dig-Dug theme.

Arcadelife verdict: It’s interesting that one of Namco’s highest rated iOS games isn’t one of their arcade classics, ported to iOS devices with wonky controls, but a game specifically designed for the touch screen, albeit with characters, sounds and music from about 30 years ago. Keep it up, Namco, you’ve obviously stumbled onto some kind of bizarre winning formula.

It's weird, it's brilliant.

Arcadelife rating: 80/100

Version reviewed by Arcadelife is 1.0

Namco Bandai website link

Arcadelife played and reviewed this game on:
4th gen iPod Touch (OS 4.3.1)
iPad (OS 4.3.1)