Pac-Man

All that can be said about Pacman has already been said a thousand times before. Eat the dots and the fruit without the ghosts getting you through progressively harder and faster mazes.

The problem with Pacman is you either love it or hate it. Somewhat like Marmite, Pacman is either something you will never be able to get enough of, or gag on your own vomit at the though of trying to guide the greedy yellow sphere around a maze.

This is where I have to come clean.

I LOVE PACMAN!

There, I feel better for stating it, but this somewhat makes me bias when reviewing the game does it not? Well I shan't beat around the bush, Pacman is ace. In this rendition of Pacman, Namco have thoughtfully provided the NGP user with a choice of either a full screen or a scrolling game. The full screen version crams Pacman's entire world onto the diminutive NGP screen, some detail is lost, but you get the whole thing, fruit and all, all at once. The scroll mode manages to replicate the arcade graphics exactly, but this time the maze must scroll. A small price to pay for having Pacman in his tubby glory. Neither mode plays any different to the other, but some players may well be hindered by the scrolling maze (but for some reason my scores are always higher in scroll mode).

Sound wise, it's arcade perfect, so no complaints there.

Pacmans longevity is down to your patience and motivation. Are you a score freak? Or are you a gamer that likes to get to the end (if that's you, go elsewhere, this game is about SCORES baby!)? For me playing Pacman is just a joy, so I play it just for the thrill, but there is disappointment for score junkies as there is no backup to save your best scores, so a good memory and trusting score rivals are a must.

Overall Pacman is a lot to do with taste, but I'm gonna score it anyway, it's a top rate conversion of a top rate game and suits the Neo Geo Pocket extremely well.