Pac-Man, the timeless classic maze action game has seen its way to a number of different platforms since its original release almost three decades back. iPhone had to be next in line with its instant popularity offering developers a way to fill up their pockets quickly. But wait, a game that relied heavily on directional pad for control ported to a device having no buttons at all? I was apprehensive as well as excited to try out the game and relive the frenzy.

Return of the ghost

Pac-Man for iPhone is a perfect replica of the original arcade version but this hurts its cause rather than benefiting it. Namco, the game developer, has done a good job in coming up with the high-resolution version of the game for iPhone and iPod touch, but on a device as advanced as the iPhone, users would be looking out for more goodies when shelling out $9.99 for a game. So what exactly is the game missing, you might ask? Before I get started, let me explain what the game actually offers. It features the yellow adventurer eating away the pac-dots eluding the four ghosts patrolling the maze. Four pellets located at the corners bless you with impregnability for a short time. Stay away from the ghosts and feast upon all the dots to step to the next level. You are granted three chances; with every chance coming with three lives along with a bonus life every 10k points. That’s minimum of nine lives a game! Pac-Man was all about transcending your previous high score in the limited number of lives presented to you.

Swipe away all the dots

Namco has included three different control styles to guide Pac-Man around the maze. The most obvious choice is the accelerometer but sadly, it inhibits your quick reflexes. Then there is a D-pad replicated on the bottom of the screen that looks and works like one pretty much. I had much hopes from this but it does get stuck in a particular position every few seconds attenuating the fun. The third control  style that worked best for me was ‘Swipe’ to move the protagonist up, down, left or right based on the swipe gesture. Small swipes work just as good and can be planned forward to be implemented as soon as a turn is encountered. I really wish the ‘D-pad’ mode worked just as well as the ‘Swipe’ as using the D-pad lets you enjoy the game in its true colors. Check out the gif image on Namco’s site that tries to explain the various control modes.

So original yet so old

Moving past the games modes, let’s look at some deficiencies that the game suffers from. Just a single layout for each difficulty level would rank at top of the list. Difficulty is measured in terms of swiftness of the ghosts while leaving the complexity of the maze unchanged. The feeling is in consonance with other buyers of the game reciprocated through App Store reviews. By the time you get hang of the controls, you start getting bored running over the same maze again and again. Let me slip in a secret here, the ghosts have rather predictable movement pattern unlike the original arcade version where ghosts took extreme pains to hunt you down and chomp you at the first available opportunity. There isn’t a two-player mode leave aside implementing peer-to-peer connectivity for multiplayer mode. Some new mazes could have added a lot more fun along with graphical skins for the existing maze. Instead Namco decided to release two other Pac-Man games namely Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Man Remix to fulfill some of the above mentioned imperfections. At the moment the game comes at a price tag of $5.99 [iTunes link] which is on the higher side considering the various limitations and drawbacks mentioned above. I would suggest wait for the price to fall down further or first check out the Lite version before jumping on to this one.