''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 A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

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, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

. It was released in North America on May 3, 2005. It is part of the ''Pac-Man'' video game franchise. The game switches from normal ''

Pac-Man ''Pac-Man,'' originally called in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The pla ...

'' 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 to play on, and both incorporate themes from the ''Pac-Man'' universe. The ball is

, 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 an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

and

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

respectively.

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'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 GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1999 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for Quake, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

'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 The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

by Rubik Interactive (now

Zen Studios Zen Studios is a Hungarian video game developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software with headquarters in Budapest, Hungary and offices in the United States. It is known for its game franchises, ''Pinball FX'' and '' Zen Pinball'', ...

) was scheduled for release in fall 2005. Reasons for cancellation are still not known.

References

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