PAC-MAN 256 The maze that never ends

There are no levels here. The maze scrolls on forever, and behind you the Glitch eats it away, the same corrupted mess of letters and numbers that ended the original arcade game at level 256. Fall into it and the run is over. So you climb, always upward, grabbing dots and fruit while the ghosts close in from every junction. The goal is simple: live a little longer, score a little higher. It turns a game about clearing a maze into one about never stopping, and that constant push is what makes a run tense from the first second.

The old four are back, and each colour still behaves in its own way: some home in on you, some patrol fixed routes, some wander in circles waiting for you to slip. New faces like Sue, Funky and Spunky join the gang, and the crowd grows the further you climb. Reading who does what at a glance is the real skill. A power pellet still turns them blue and edible, which never stops being satisfying, but with a dozen ghosts on screen at once you will want more than a snack.

Up to four players share one screen, and the rules take a minute to explain: eat dots, dodge ghosts, stay ahead of the Glitch. The fun comes from what happens next, when someone gets cornered, someone else eats a power pellet at the worst moment, and the maze fills with chaos. It works as light competition too, since everyone is chasing a score and the game tracks who beats whose best. Short runs mean nobody waits long for their turn at glory.

Local co-op turns a solo score chase into a shared mess, in the good way. You can work together, drawing ghosts away from a friend or timing power ups as a team, and a fallen companion can be brought back into the run. It is also simply funnier: four Pacs swerving through a ghost pile-up while the Glitch creeps up from below is a different game from the solo one. All you need is one screen and some controllers.