its own personality. It was one of the earliest feats of AI. But what if the ghosts didn’t

have Artificial intelligence? What if they had, y’know, actual intelligence? Would

Pac-Man be in more trouble? Awright, we’ll even it out. There’ll be three ghosts instead

of four. Including our hero, we then have room for four players, OH LOOK that’s how

many ports there are on a GameCube! Obviously a Pac-Man flavored party game should erupt

from this serendipity. And lo, there was Pac-Man Vs., possibly the most unique take on Namco’s

favorite yellow circle that doesn’t involve a swimming pool full of bubblegum.

First off, this is strictly a multiplayer game. You need at least one player to be a

ghost, and one player with a Game Boy Advance and GameCube link cable to play the part of

Pac-Man. After choosing a map and a winning score, one player is chosen at random to take

up the GBA and, true to the arcade classic, EAT ALL THE THINGS while avoiding the ghostly

pursuers. The remaining players, each controlling a ghost, give chase (and/or run the heck away

when appropriate), trying to tag Pac-Man and take over control of the GBA. This continues,

with the game tracking the multitudes of controller-passings, until one player reaches the agreed-upon score,

thus prooving the justice of our culture. It’s a fairly simple idea, but makes clever

use of one of the stranger GameCube peripherals. And it’s a party game that even old people

can understand! IT’S A HIM, PACMAN.

But let’s address the elephant in the room: Yes, that is Mario doing the play-by-play

commentary. And by Mario, I mean Charles Martinet, doing the official, Nintendo-Seal-Of-Approval

Mario voice. Don’t be fooled: It’s published by Namco, featuring Namco’s bread-and-butter

mascot, but was developed by Nintendo under the direction of Shigeru Miyamoto himself.

That’s a pretty auspicious lineage for a game that was given away as a tech demo, as

well as occasionally bundled with titles like I-Ninja. If you’ve got the GameCube controllers

and GBA and link cable handy, it’s a fantastic party game, though that’s pretty much all

you can do with it. Those looking for the same experience without all the hardware requirements

can find their answer in Namco Museum DS, where the entire four-player throwdown can

be had with only a single cartridge, thanks to Download Play. But if you’re just playing

on four DSes, you can’t have a cheering section. Billy knows what I’m talkin’

about.