Pac-Man Battle Royale

Pac-Man Battle Royale is the 17th arcade game in Pac-Man's series (11th official). It is made as part of Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary^[1] and developed by Namco Bandai Games. It was first released for the arcade in January 2011 and later ported to Pac-Man Museum for a digital release (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC) in 2014.

First appearances

Battle Royale was first displayed in the United States in a playable state at the 2010 Amusement Expo show in Las Vegas.^[2][3] in March 2010. It was then seen again at an after-party event during E3, where Namco America brought four cabinets for attendees to play.^[4][5] Namco also took the unusual step of throwing a party prior to the launch of the game at the Whiskey River Saloon in Madison, Wisconsin.^[6] It was not seen in Japan until September 2010 at the JAMMA Amusement Machine Show,^[7] which is opposite of most major Namco arcade releases where they are shown off in Japan first and are later brought to the US.

Gameplay

Battle Royale features a one to four-player mode, with the Pac-Man character available in four different colours. In single player mode, a CPU controlled Pac-Man will attempt to eat the player. The game can be set anywhere between three and nine rounds and in each round the players must eat the other Pac-Men on the board (or allow them to be defeated by the ghosts) to advance. The game shares similar graphics to that of Pac-Man Championship Edition.

Release

While the game was reported for a release in September 2010,^[8] it was delayed for unknown reasons until late November 2010. NAMCO America, Inc. officially announced the release of Pac-Man Battle Royale on January 21, 2011.^[9]

Unique to Namco's other modern arcade releases, the company created a Facebook page to promote the game, which registered locations where players could find the game.^[10]

References