PAC-MAN DASH! Review

The original Pac-Man arcade game launched in 1980 - well over 20 years ago - and now Namco, the developers of the original game, want to bring the character of Pac-Man to a whole new generation in Pac-Man Dash!

At first glance, Pac-Man Dash! looks like one of the many endless running games that have flooded the App Store. But scratch the surface and players will quickly realize that Pac-Man Dash! has managed to retain all the charm of the beloved arcade game whilst still being able to modernize it for the demands of today's gamers.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Pac-Man Dash! supported four separate game saves; an obvious throwback to another era. But rather than just adding this in for the sake of nostalgia, the developers of Pac-Man Dash! have taken it one step further and allows players to set the times that each save will receive their bonus along with showing each players' top score on the save screen - making a bit of friendly competition easy!

Rather than letting the player run until their character dies, Pac-Man Dash! instead opts to give them 30 seconds on each level - with this time being expandable by collecting ghosts. Whilst in theory this should work well, I personally think the game would benefit if their were more ghosts throughout the levels - or if players had unlimited time and the ghosts had to be avoided. On average I'd say I spent around 45 seconds on each level before running out of time, which isn't much at all.

In Pac-Man Dash!, players are given several different missions - each of which must be finished in order to progress onto the next map. These missions can range from "Pick up five ghosts" to "Eat a ghost while dashing!" Dashing in Pac-Man Dash! is when Pac-Man speeds up in order to try and catch ghosts, but players should use dashing wisely as it does come in limited quantities.

Overall Pac-Man Dash! is without a doubt a unique and inspired take on the endless runner genre, and although some levels can be a bit short the fun and challenging missions more than make up for this.