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PAC-MAN PINBALL ADVANCE (GBA)
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Publisher: Zoo Digital.
Developer: Human Soft. Released: August 2025. Genre: Pinball. Posted 10th January 2025. By Tom Clare © 2025 |
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What do the rock band Kiss, anime classic Akira, and silver-screen sleuth Austin Powers have in common? That’s right: in the early 2000s, they all starred in pinball video games. If everyone else was doing it, then why not Pac-Man? The enigmatic pill muncher had been quietly rebuilding his standing in the years prior, with a spate of well-received platformers helping introduce the character to a new generation. There’s a reason you’ve never seen Pac-Man Pinball Advance on Namco’s extensive list of compilations, however. This uninspired effort would prove one to forget.
I love pinball games. The trouble with Pac-Man’s effort is rooted in good old-fashioned dullness. There’s nothing abhorrently wrong with it, save for a desperate lack of sparkle and a deep-rooted mediocrity that snuffs out much of the fun. Predictably enough, Pac-Man himself serves as the pinball, and the game features four tables, though more accurately it’s two skins for two tables: Pac Village and Haunted Boardwalk. There’s little difference between them in terms of gameplay, with the greatest divergence coming in the darker visual style of what might be described as the ‘night’ tables.
Pinball Advance's tables are functional but basic, as are its physics. There's little to get excited about.
Simplistic physics and table layouts could still have offered a nice diversion, 20 minutes here and there to pass a car journey. The flipper controls are responsive, and the nudges assigned to the shoulder buttons also work fine. It just doesn’t feel as though there’s any heart to it. None of the themes hit the mark, and there’s no sense that the melding of two of video gaming’s most enduring mainstays, Pac-Man and pinball, was anything more than a marriage of convenience. There are precious few surprises or rewards for improving, and consequently, little incentive to keep playing. Invariably, when the developers aren’t feeling it, it’s hard for the player to conjure a good time.
Both tables make visual reference to the Pac-Man universe, albeit it’s fairly low-hanging fruit. There are yellow pills to collect around the loops, whilst chomping the big yellow pellets turns the ghosts blue, allowing players a limited time to swoop in and gobble them up for big points. There’s also the option to call on the assistance of Ms Pac-Man for a neat multiball variant, though I doubt anyone had to pull an all-nighter adapting the sprite to fit her appearance.
Both tables make visual reference to the Pac-Man universe, albeit it’s fairly low-hanging fruit. There are yellow pills to collect around the loops, whilst chomping the big yellow pellets turns the ghosts blue, allowing players a limited time to swoop in and gobble them up for big points. There’s also the option to call on the assistance of Ms Pac-Man for a neat multiball variant, though I doubt anyone had to pull an all-nighter adapting the sprite to fit her appearance.
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Beyond these arbitrary nods, however, the tables have more in common with those of the 1970s than the more adventurous, exciting video gaming efforts fans had become accustomed to. That’s not a dig at older layouts, many of which are excellent, but there’s little beyond the basics here. A couple of slingshots, a trio of bumpers, the traditional three-light rollover lanes that light up the letters in ‘PAC-MAN’, and a couple of targets. That’s pretty much your lot. The nineties saw the Crush games offering visually exciting, ‘living’ tables with evolving, moving parts and boss rooms. If these weren’t your bag, there was the Pro Pinball series, sporting incredible physics and a range of high-tech ‘dream’ tables. Whether you preferred the fantastical or the realistic, these games’ tables resulted in hours of absorbing play. By contrast, Pinball Advance offers few eye-catching ideas, middling physics and unremarkable design.
The graphics are busy but not especially pretty, and a yellow pinball on the ‘day’ courses is tricky to distinguish from the backgrounds. The music is jaunty on occasions but spoiled by bouts of brain-throbbing repetition, with the game opting to loop a segment of the original Pac-Man’s level-opening music ad nauseam. Perhaps Pac-Man Pinball Advance’s strangest faux-pas is its failure to provide a high-score table. I can’t think of another pinball game that doesn’t at least challenge the player to pit their efforts against a top score, or bask in the satisfaction of placing on a leaderboard. Here, there’s nothing, not even a benchmark. Arguably the chief motivation for repeat visits has been overlooked completely. Rather disappointingly, there are no table options whatsoever and no unlockables.
The graphics are busy but not especially pretty, and a yellow pinball on the ‘day’ courses is tricky to distinguish from the backgrounds. The music is jaunty on occasions but spoiled by bouts of brain-throbbing repetition, with the game opting to loop a segment of the original Pac-Man’s level-opening music ad nauseam. Perhaps Pac-Man Pinball Advance’s strangest faux-pas is its failure to provide a high-score table. I can’t think of another pinball game that doesn’t at least challenge the player to pit their efforts against a top score, or bask in the satisfaction of placing on a leaderboard. Here, there’s nothing, not even a benchmark. Arguably the chief motivation for repeat visits has been overlooked completely. Rather disappointingly, there are no table options whatsoever and no unlockables.
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The 'night' variants are the best, with Pac-Man far easier to make out against the backgrounds
Unfortunately, it’s in keeping with the feeling that Pac-Man’s foray into the pinball gaming space was more a job than a passion project. It does the bare minimum, providing a functional pinball experience with a modest selection of references to its source. A handful of quick plays and you’ll have seen everything it has to offer, and with so many better alternatives, it’ll be smarter to ghost (sorry) it and spend your money elsewhere.
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VERDICT
"A functional pinball experience with a modest selection of references to its source... There’s no sense that the melding of two of video gaming’s enduring mainstays was anything more than a marriage of convenience." OVERALL: 4/10 |
OTHER PINBALL GAME ALTERNATIVES REVIEWED
Pro Pinball: Timeshock! (1997, PC)
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Demon's Tilt (2019, PlayStation 4)
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