''Pac-Man Pinball Advance'' is a

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by Hungarian studio Human Soft and published by Namco Hometek for the

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...

. It was released in North America on May 2, 2005. It is part of the ''Pac-Man'' video game franchise. The game switches from normal '' Pac-Man'' gameplay to a pinball-style video game. ''Pac-Man Pinball Advance'' received mixed to negative reviews from critics, who felt that its gameplay was limited.

Gameplay

The game has two ''Pac-Man'' styled

tables Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table d ...

to play on, and both incorporate themes from the ''Pac-Man'' universe. The ball is Pac-Man, who rolls up into a ball and continues to collect pellets much like he did in earlier notes. Like the other games in the ''Pac-Man'' series, there are four ghosts which wander the pinball tables after Pac-Man eats a power pellet. The plot of the game focuses on the kidnapping of all the residents of Pac-Land by the four ghosts from the ''Pac-Man'' series, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. The plot is secondary to the gameplay of the game though, and mostly exists just as a premise to explain why Pac-Man is playing on a pinball table. The game does not contain a high scores table.

Reception

''Pac-Man Pinball Advance'' received mixed reviews from critics, who thought that there was a lack of content and sub-par graphics; it received a 52% and a 50.40% from review aggregate websites

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

and GameRankings respectively. GameSpot's Frank Provo heavily criticized the game for a lackluster graphics engine and its inappropriate physics engine. He called the lack of a high scores table "inexcusable". GameSpy's David Chapman felt that the game managed to capture the feel of the ''Pac-Man'' series, but ultimately was a bland video game. ''PALGN''s David Low felt that the graphics and physics engine were adequate, but felt that the lack of content and the inclusion of only two pinball tables was the game's weak point.

Cancelled sequel

A sequel titled ''Super Pac-Man Pinball'' for the Nintendo DS by Rubik Interactive (now Zen Studios) was scheduled for release in fall 2005. Reasons for cancellation are still not known.

References

{{Pac-Man series Pinball video games 2005 video games Game Boy Advance games Game Boy Advance-only games Pac-Man Namco games Video games developed in Hungary