As Billy Mitchell would be happy to explain to you at length, each ghost in Pac-Man has
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.