Pac-Man Championship Edition
| Pac-Man Championship Edition | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Namco Bandai Games |
| Publisher(s) | Namco Bandai Games |
| Director(s) | Tadashi Iguchi |
| Producer(s) | Nobutaka Nakajima |
| Designer(s) | Toru Iwatani |
| Programmer(s) | Takashi Ōtsuka Yasumichi Onishi Hideki Harada |
| Artist(s) | Masaharu Okada Hideki Tanaami Yoshikazu Komatsu |
| Composer(s) | Junko Ozawa |
| Series | Pac-Man |
| Platform(s) | Xbox 360 iOS Android Maemo 5 PlayStation Portable Roku Nintendo Entertainment System |
| Release | Xbox Live Arcade
|
| Genre(s) | Maze |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Pac-Man Championship Edition is a 2007 maze video game developed and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360. It has since been released on several other platforms, including iOS, Android, and the PlayStation Portable as a PSP mini title available on the PlayStation Store (consequently playable on the PlayStation 3). It is an HD reimagining of Namco's original Pac-Man arcade game; players navigate Pac-Man through an enclosed maze, eating pellets and avoiding four ghosts that pursue him. Clearing an entire side of the maze of dots will cause a fruit item to appear, and eating it will cause a new maze to appear on the opposite side.
Development of Championship Edition was headed by director Tadashi Iguchi, alongside producer Nobutaka Nakajima and designer and the father of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, the original creator of Pac-Man — Championship Edition was the final game he designed. Unhappy with earlier attempts to remake Pac-Man for removing many of the common elements present in the original, the development team focused on taking the original concept and expanding on two core features: the game speed and new mazes, which they felt would be the best way to "modernize" it. Iguchi was not much of a Pac-Man fan, spending much of his time thinking about how hardcore Pac-Man fans would react to the game's new features and ideas. It was chosen to make the game feel like an arcade game, due to it being released for the Xbox Live Arcade service.
Backed by a large marketing campaign orchestrated by Microsoft and Namco Bandai, Pac-Man Championship Edition was well-received by critics. Publications commended the game for successfully translating the classic Pac-Man gameplay into a modern format, with its gameplay, soundtrack and online features also being praised. One critic labeled it as "the first true sequel to Pac-Man since Ms. Pac-Man". However, some disliked the lack of a multiplayer mode and for reusing enemy movement patterns in the original. It was remade by Chinese studio Mine Loader Software as Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and followed by a sequel, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2.