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'Delayed development' cancels Pac-Man Museum on 3DS, Wii U
Yesterday, we brought you a happy story on the free copy of Ms. Pac-Man included with early purchases of Pac-Man Museum. Today, we bring you gloomy news: The compilation's 3DS and Wii U ports are no longer planned for release. Pac-Man Museum was first announced last summer. At that time it was slated for release on Steam, Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network, and the Wii U and 3DS eShops. That story from yesterday only mentioned the Steam, Xbox Live and PSN iterations of Pac-Man Museum, prompting Nintendo Everything to contact publisher Namco Bandai. According to the site's report, both the Wii U and 3DS versions of Pac-Man Museum have been cancelled "as a result of delayed development." While this cancellation is depressing news for Nintendo devotees, those who have access to any of the platforms Pac-Man Museum will be appearing on should give the game a shot, if only for Pac-Man Battle Royale. Unless you frequent Japanese arcades, you probably won't have many other chances to experience the gleeful chaos that is four-player Pac-Man.
Pac-Man Battle Royale now shipping to US arcades
Great news for people who live anywhere near an arcade in the US: Distributor BMI Gaming is now shipping the wonderful Pac-Man Battle Royale to American arcade operators. When we played Battle Royale at E3, our sheer delight was tainted by sadness, as we figured that many of you would never get to experience this game if it only saw a limited Japanese release. While this isn't the home version we so dearly want, even the slightest possibility of being able to play this four-player Pac-vs.-Pac game is enough to put a smile on our faces. Arcade Heroes reports that the $4275 price tag for the cocktail-style cabinet is low relative to other new-release arcade games, meaning that arcade operators will have an incentive to choose Battle Royale over other games. And that's good for everyone except the first three Pac-Men we meet in our local arcade.
Preview: Pac-Man Battle Royale
Pac-Man Battle Royale is a delight and a danger. The Joystiq staff's encounter with the four-player arcade game, encapsulated in a classy cocktail cabinet standing at a comfortable height, threatened to derail our E3 coverage with its addictive mixture of nostalgia, playful rivalry and recognizable mechanics. We suspect that Namco Bandai's insistence on making this an arcade system stems from the fact that you can impulsively handcuff yourself to the machine. The shared, upward-facing screen in the table also makes it a very social experience. Surrounded by four joysticks (and, in our case, four Joystiqs), Pac-Man's maze becomes a playground for several differently colored and apparently cannibalistic Pac-people. Eating all the dots and food in a section of the maze will cause a new sequence to appear, and once this happens there's a mad rush for the new power pellets. It makes pathfinding and avoiding ghosts in the maze feel especially pressing. Once you've gobbled up a pellet (and you're rarely the only one to do so in any given moment) your Pac-protagonist grows to enormous size. You're able to eat ghosts as usual, but you can also devour any of your fellow players. The mega Pac-Man is slightly faster than the regular one, making your victim an easy snack if he can't quickly lose you in the maze. Giants can't eat each other, however, and bounce away when they come into contact. That sounds harmless, but there's a risk of getting bumped back into a ghost just as your invincible size wears off. Much like Pac-Man Championship Edition and Pac-Man Vs., Battle Royale is another clever, colorful twist on one of gaming's most comforting icons. It's going to be great fun in bars -- and if Namco Bandai doesn't release a home version on XBLA or PSN, people will start to think of us as hardcore alcoholics. Just one more round, please.
Pac-Man's 'next evolution' to amaze us at E3
Namco just sent press invitations out for a Pac-Man 30th Anniversary event to be held during E3. The event promises not only to celebrate the long history of the ghost-eating sphere man, but also to reveal "the future of the franchise." That almost certainly refers to the new multiplayer arcade game Pac-Man Battle Royale, but Namco indicated that it will have even more new Pac-Man games for us to gobble up, possibly while saying "waka waka waka." The invitation notes that "unreleased titles on console, mobile, arcade, and more" will be on display. Perhaps this will be the venue for the official reveal of Pac-Man Rally Kart. Whatever the specific games, it seems that no platform is safe from Pac-Man this year.
Pac-Man Battle Royale: competitive Pac-Man for omnivores
As advertised, Namco Bandai brought a prototype of its new Pac-Man Battle Royale to the 2010 Amusement Expo. Arcade Heroes captured some off-screen footage of the multiplayer arcade title (posted after the break), revealing a cross between the GameCube's Pac-Man Vs. and the XBLA hit Pac-Man: Championship Edition. Instead of putting certain players in the roles of ghosts as Pac-Man Vs. did, however, Battle Royale takes the direct approach and pits four cannibalistic Pac-Men against each other, as they compete to eat the most dots, ghosts and even each other. The game would be totally brutal if the cocktail-style cabinet didn't make it all appear so classy. Hopefully, Namco Bandai will use that cabinet for the final version of the game, due for a September release, as well. [Via GameSetWatch]
Namco teases 'Pac-Man Battle Royale' arcade game
Namco Bandai has taken a very tentative first step toward providing a solution to the puzzle of what Pac-Man Battle Royale is. In a teaser video, the company revealed an arcade game with multiple Pac-Mans (Pac-Men?). A faint image behind the "Sneak Peek at Amusement Expo 2010" caption suggests a multiplayer game with up to four players sharing a big maze. A reinvented arcade game would be the perfect way to mark the 30th anniversary of the original. We'll have to wait, then, until the expo (March 10-12) to see more; but, in the meantime, we can watch the teaser over and over again and dream of the upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii-ization of Pac-Man and dream of a mythical world where we'll get to play an arcade game. Join us in this reverie after the break.
'Pac-Man: Battle Royale' trademarked
With Pac-Man Championship Edition having just come out on the iPhone (and being, pretty much, Pac-Man Championship Edition), we're in a pro-Pac-Man frame of mind. So when we saw this European trademark for a game called Pac-Man: Battle Royale, we thought "Another Pac-Man game!" instead of "... another Pac-Man game?" Adding further excitement was another trademark for "Drill Till You Drop," which sounds a lot like a Mr. Driller spinoff (and maintains the spelling error found in the title for the Dead Rising game on Wii). Now, all we know is that these trademarks are for games. They could very well be lame arcade redemption games, or Flash games, or any number of completely underwhelming things. But Battle Royale could also be -- though it probably won't, since this is too exciting -- something like a multiplayer take on Championship Edition. [Image: The Arcade Flyer Archive]
