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April 7, 2017 11:10 PM

Pac-Man 256 Review Ben McCurry reviews the new Namco Bandai release, and the Brash Games review site. [Archived link]
posted by oheso (24 comments total)

And 404. That was quick. :P
posted by Aleyn at 11:15 PM on April 7, 2017

Archived copy: http://archive.is/qiZ6j
posted by effbot at 11:18 PM on April 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

(above link from Ben M's twitter)
posted by effbot at 11:20 PM on April 7, 2017

That's a great review of a skilful reimagining of an old classic. Cortex is deleting posts he disagrees with then hiding the evidence. I liked playing PacMan in the arcades when i was a boy.

Actually I never really played, i just watched. Mods are an unelected cabal that are destroying this website one bad decision at a time. I remember once someone got a high score on Ms PacMan and walked away and I got to put my initials in, haha that was a great day.
posted by Sebmojo at 11:22 PM on April 7, 2017 [27 favorites]

REVIEW CODE: Here at Brash Games we have a strict Review Code policy, Paul Ryan owner / editor is the only member of staff at Brash Games permitted to obtain review code and distribute it within the Brash Games review team. No other person is permitted to request review code and or send review links or contact the publishers in any way whatsoever. Should you wish to send us review code please email [e-mail]

Oh Paul, I suspect your email box is about to get full, full, full.
posted by Sebmojo at 11:24 PM on April 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

It looks like a review of Pac-Man 256, but actually it's about ethics in video games journalism.
posted by robcorr at 11:26 PM on April 7, 2017 [48 favorites]

effbot, many thanks for the archive link!
posted by oheso at 11:35 PM on April 7, 2017

This initially confused me because Pac-man 256 is a couple years old now, but upon reading I see that

1) It's on the PC now. Hooray.
2) This isn't really about that anyway. Whoa.

and I come to understand that

3) I wish this would come to Switch.
posted by dumbland at 11:45 PM on April 7, 2017

Mod note: Added the archived link to the post (thanks, effbot!).
posted by taz (staff) at 11:49 PM on April 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I loved it for what it is, but also for what it purports to be. I didn know about Pac-man 256, and now I know.
posted by kandinski at 2:56 AM on April 8, 2017

Developed by Hipster Whale of Crossy Road fame. A lot of the gameplay is ripped from a 2011 iPhone game called "Forget Me Not", whose author almost pulled his games from the App Store because it wasn't worth the $99/year to keep it up -- a mysterious benefactor jumped in to pay the fee at the last minute.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:16 AM on April 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

While it was up it was a glory to behold.
posted by Artw at 7:38 AM on April 8, 2017

First I'd heard of OpenCritic, which seems like an admirable attempt to address some of the problems in the video game review business (wait, no, I'm not a GamerGater, but there are some legitimate problems, such as the outsized influence of MetaCritic).
posted by whir at 7:41 AM on April 8, 2017

While it was up it was a glory to behold.
posted by Artw at 7:38 AM on April 8 [+] [!]

As the chorus girl said to the vicar...
posted by chavenet at 10:35 AM on April 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

Allow me to be the first to say: "oh, snap"
posted by sexyrobot at 10:42 AM on April 8, 2017

Dear gators: this is what concern over ethics in video game journalism looks like. Not death threats on Twitter.
posted by Dysk at 12:11 PM on April 8, 2017 [6 favorites]

They don't give a shit, TBH, and put minimum effort into their cover.
posted by Artw at 12:28 PM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm fully aware, aye.
posted by Dysk at 12:29 PM on April 8, 2017

Forget Me Not: I'm not only aware of this game, but I posted about it to Metafilter a while ago. It's great, but it really has very little to do with Pac-Man 256 other than being set in a maze.

Pac-Man 256: It didn't take me that long to reach a place of optimum strategy for it. My high score is nearly 80K. It's okay, but it's really not a lot like traditional Pac-Man either; only one of the ghosts acts like its counterpart in that game.

This review: I'm glad the reviewer was able to expose the behavior of the site's owner.
posted by JHarris at 1:21 PM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

I could have sworn I saw an interview with the Hipster Whale folks where they cited it as an influence -- the continuous-run-of-dots bonus is a giveaway. There's even an unlockable Forget-Me-Not character in Crossy Road.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:50 PM on April 8, 2017

He's also a pretty terrible House Speaker.
posted by koeselitz at 2:22 PM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

I can see bits being inspired by it, but I think it's really very separate overall. Forget-Me-Not is a very very random game, with lots of weird monsters with weird behaviors and interesting strategies, while Pac-Man 256 is really a lot less interesting overall, especially with all its blatant F2P nonsense, even as a paid game.
posted by JHarris at 2:27 PM on April 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Dear gators: this is what concern over ethics in video game journalism looks like. Not death threats on Twitter.

Also sites like eurogamer and rockpapershotgun are punctilious about saying when they are promoting games made by colleagues and friends these days.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:37 PM on April 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

(On Forget-Me-Not's dot combo feature, I should mention, that I myself used this idea in my own Pac-Man-like game....)
posted by JHarris at 8:49 AM on April 9, 2017