Normally I wouldn’t review every free-to-play Candy Crush clone that comes about on the iPad, but I had to with this one because it has Pac-Man in it! And you know how I like Pac-Man!  Apparently the ghost monsters have stolen all the fruit from the Pac-Man arcade machine and have run off, and now Pac-Man must catch them.  Help him by matching three of the same fruits in a row in this downloadable game available for iOS and Android devices (reviewed on iPad here).

If you’ve played any match-three puzzle game like Candy Crush or Bejeweled, you’ll know what to expect here. Slide fruit to match three or more, and each stage has different objectives.  Sometimes you’ll have to clear out tiles (a.k.a. hidden ghosts) by matching fruit, sometimes you must reach a certain score in a time limit, and other times you must make matches to drop cookies to the bottom of the screen (they look like the ones from Yoshi’s Cookie).

When you match four or more fruits, you can get a special item to help you clear out other fruits. Four in a row will make one of the fruits clear out a horizontal or vertical row.  If you match five in a corner formation, that fruit will turn into a bell and if you match fruit with that same color bell, it’ll clear out the fruits surround it twice!  And if you match five in a straight line, one will turn into a Galaxian ship which will clear out all of one fruit of the same color on the entire screen.  You can also use items like extra turns to help you, but they don’t come easy unless you buy them.

The problems with this game are just like the ones in other free-to-play titles. If you lose a round, you’ll lose a heart and must wait for a long time for them to refill so you can play more.  And at around level 20, the game gets super hard and you won’t be able to pass unless you pay for items or lives.  While that’s usually the norm in these kinds of games, level 20 seems pretty early on for that kind of nonsense to start.

It’s a shame because a few years ago, there was another match three puzzle game featuring Pac-Man that was much better. It was called Pac Chomp and was one of the first games I downloaded on my iPad.  Pac Chomp had more of a Pac-Man ‘feel’ to it.  In that one you matched ghosts, not fruit, and if you could line up the Pac-Man with the power pellet on the field, you could move Pac-Man around for a limited time and chomp ghosts and fruit for bonus points.  And it had no in-game purchases either.  It’s a shame that Pac Chomp’s not on the iOS store anymore.

As a classic Namco fan, there were two things about Pac-Man Puzzle Tour that I kind of liked. The map screen was neat because it was filled with arcade cabinets, pinball machines, air hockey, and pinball tables.  And you can choose an icon when showing off your high scores online, and while most of them are of Pac-Man and ghost monsters, there were some from other Namco games like the cats and police mouse from Mappy, and The Prince and King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy!

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here, but parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases and ads. Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary as everything is pretty easy to figure out just by playing.

Tags: Game Reviews