Pac-Attack

Released: 1993
Genre: Puzzle
Format reviewed: SNES
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Namco/Now Production
Submitted by: Steven Ronald Jackson
Pac-Man is one of the video-game worlds true institutions. Starting out gobbling up ghosts and pellets, Pac-Man has had a long and illustrious history in the video-game industry. So it is no surprise Namco wanted to cash in on their top pellet muncher once more in Pac-Attack released in 1993 for the SNES.
Pac-Attack unlike most Pac-Man games doesn't have you in command of Pac-Man. Instead it is up to the player to move a variety of blocks so then Pac-Man can gobble up the ghosts below.
Pac-Attack is essentially a clone of Tetris, tweeked around the Pac-Man style of gameplay which is ok, but can get a little repetative and you sometimes think to yourself "Why don't I just play Tetris or Pac-Man?"
In terms of game modes, the game has three; 1 player normal mode, 1 player puzzle mode and 2 player versus mode. The 1 player normal mode is essentially a marathon gameplay session seeing how long you can last without losing. The puzzle mode however has you trying to work out a variety of different puzzles on how to get the ghosts in the fewest amount of moves otherwise you die. The 2-player mode is basically the same as the normal mode only with another player. So the game doesn't really offer anything new in terms of gameplay modes and it can tire quite quickly.
In terms of music and graphics, the music is quite average while the graphics although colourful and detailed, are not really a reason to play a puzzle game.
To conclude, Pac-Attack was once again another chance for Namco to squeeze some life out of their dying Pac-Man franchise. The gameplay is nothing special and it has already been seen numerous times but if you are a fan of the franchise it may hold some novelty value. The game has been re-released for the Wii's Virtual Console at a cost of 800 Wii points but if I were you I'd save them for something else.