Pac-Man 256 - Crossy Road + A Gaming Icon

Nope, you didn't read that wrong. A little while ago Pac-man 256 hit android and iOS and it's by the same team that brought you Crossy Road. So if you enjoyed that game, do yourself a favor, stop reading this and give it a download, it won't take long!

If you're like me however and found Crossy Road fun for all of about five minutes tops, keep reading, because I think what initially attracted you to try out Crossy Road may be fleshed out in Pac-man 256. Or if you don't even know what Crossy Road is and just like the idea of endless runners, but have never much cared for the execution, stay with me for a little while.

Pac-man 256 might not be an endless runner in all the traditional sense of the term, but at it's core it fits the bill.

You take on the role of pac-man and try to crawl up the board as quickly as you can as the 256 glitch is hot on your non-existent tail. Along the way you'll be dodging (or eating) ghosts, munching on dots, snagging fruit, and even grabbing different powerups that are placed on the board to give pac-man an edge against his ghastly foes.

The game is pretty straight forward in this respect, and even allows you to upgrade your powerups with coins you find in the level, receive for clearing objectives, or for watching video ads. Since there isn't much for me to cover mechanically, I'll move onto the controls.

Navigating the board in Pac-man 256 is easy enough, you just swipe in any direction you like to move pac-man where you want him to go. If you swipe in a direction pac-man isn't able to turn in it will queue the move and use it the second it becomes possible.

This is very useful for planning out your moves ahead of time considering that each different colored ghost behaves in a set way. You can see a variety of different ghosts up above (though they're all flashing white at the moment because I grabbed a power pellet), and each one has a pattern you can observe as you play the game to let you craft your strategy in order to avoid them.

This makes Pac-man 256 one of the most thought filled endless runners I've ever played, which may explain why I'm actually still playing it.

As to be expected, Pac-man 256 is a free to play game, so free to play's usual things are present. However, I haven't encountered any frustrating ads yet in my time playing.

Pac-man 256 works on a credit system if you're playing with powerups, and the game allows you 6 that recharge over time. Starting up a game requires a credit, and when you die you can restart from where you died once more for another. Once you're all out credits you can either wait for them to come back, or you could purchase an additional 12 for 99 cents.

You also have the option to pay for unlimited credits instead of just buying continuous recharges, essentially making this a game that you'd purchase and not merely pay fees for if you want to keep playing with credits.

While the price of unlimited credits may seem a little steep from a mobile game perspective, I believe it's worth it if you plan on playing with powerups for extended periods of time.

Alternatively, the game offers a free play mode where powerups aren't a factor that you can play as many times as you like, but you don't receive any continues. So dying puts you right back at the start menu after another click, but you're free to try again, and with a game as addicting like this I'm sure you will.

Pac-man 256 is a fun little time waster, like most mobile games, and its unobtrusive free to play model doesn't make me feel scummy for hitting the play button one more time. If you liked Crossy Road, enjoy endless runners, or even just pac-man I heavily recommend you check out this game.

Just don't blame me if you suddenly feel tempted to buy unlimited credits after a few minutes of playing.