Review: Pac-Man for iPod

“Namco was one of four companies outside of Apple picked to inaugurate Apple’s premium iPod games service—games you can buy from the iTunes store for $4.99 a pop. It’s nice to have such a beloved classic on the iPod, though the game itself doesn’t succeed quite as well as I had hoped it would,” Peter Cohen writes for Playlist.

“What’s of key difference in this version of Pac-Mac is the control—instead of using a joystick, like in the arcades, you’re using a virtual joystick, if you will, by gently touching the cardinal directions of the click wheel. You don’t need to actually press the buttons—moving your thumb over the Menu, play/pause, rewind, and fast forward keys is enough to get the on-screen joystick to respond. It takes a little getting used to, and it’s more difficult than it should be—Pac-Man really requires lightning reflexes, and the iPod’s click wheel just doesn’t feel that precise,” Cohen writes.

Cohen awards Pac-Man for iPod 2.5 out of 5 stars in his full review here.

30 Comments

  1. “The gaming experience on the iPod, thus far, doesn’t seem optimal because the iPod wasn’t designed for games.”

    If ony Apple would ditch that click wheel and put a direction pad on the unit, it might be better for games.

    Putting a big landscape wide screen on it would help too.

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