RATING AND CONTENT
Recommended for ages 10 and older
Quality: 3 out of 5
Positive Messages: 0 out of 5
Positive Role Models: 0 out of 5
Ease of play: 0 out of 5
Violence: 1 out of 5
Language: 0 out of 5
Sexy stuff: 0 of 5
Drinking, drugs and smoking: 0 out of 5
Consumerism: 0 out of 5 (Are products/advertisements embedded? Is the title part of a broader marketing initiative/empire? Is the intent to sell things to kids?)
GAME DETAILS
Platform: PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One
Price: $7.99
Developer: Namco Bandai
Release Date: April 26, 2016
Genre: Arcade
ESRB Rating: E10+ for fantasy violence, mild fantasy violence
Parents need to know that the three games included in the “Arcade Game Series 3-In-1 Pack” — Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug — are old-school arcade games and are thus devoid of any violent or sexual content. In Galaga, you do shoot aliens who explode, while Dig Dug squishes his enemies with rocks and uses an air pump to make his enemies expand until they pop, but neither game’s deaths are bloody or gory. As for Pac-Man, his binge eating does set a bad example, as does all his pill popping, though he does enjoy some fruit occasionally.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Because it collects three old arcade games, the “Arcade Game Series 3-In-1 Pack” doesn’t have a story of its own, nor do these individual games. Sure, there’s undoubtedly a reason why the ghosts don’t want Pac-Man to eat all those pellets, why the aliens in Galaga have to be stopped, and why Dig Dug wants to destroy his adversaries, but since these games are 35 years old (and older), those motivations have been lost to the ages.
IS IT ANY GOOD?
By pairing their original, old-school mechanics with upgraded, high-definition visuals, this collection of three arcade classics will delight gamers both young and old. For those old enough to remember when it cost a quarter to play these games, the trio of influential icons included in the “Arcade Game Series 3-In-1 Pack” — Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug — will transport you to the days of your youth, thanks to these versions being the same ones from the arcades; they just look better. But if you want, you can make small changes to them, giving yourself more lives or changing the vertical rectangle screen to a square or a TV-screen-filling horizontal rectangle, or all variations in between. Best of all, besides this three-pack, all three games are available individually, along with the equally classic “Ms. Pac-Man,” which is available on its own. While old folks will appreciate how well these classics have held up, some younger gamers might find them to be a bit simplistic, redundant, or visually dated. But anyone who plays arcade games on a smartphone or tablet will appreciate how these games used their simplicity to be so engaging and addictive that we’re still playing them 30-plus-years later.
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