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Two of our favourite gaming orbs arrive on Game Pass today, with cricket balls bouncing around thanks to Cricket 22 (PC) and the mighty yellow ball, Pac-Man, getting a compendium of hits in the form of Pac-Man Museum+ (Cloud, Console and PC).
But wait, you may ask, isn’t Cricket 22 already on Game Pass? Aha, very observant of you. Cricket 22 has been on the service for a few months now, but only for console players. Today’s launch brings it to PC as well. Which isn’t all that exciting, now we think about it. Perhaps we should have led with Pac-Man Museum+.
Because Pac-Man Museum+ is exactly what a gaming anthology should be. It casts a wide net and isn’t afraid of bringing you games that, at best, could be called offbeat curios, while some Pac-Man fans would be less charitable about them. It’s a warts-and-all list of Pac-Man games, and we’re all for it.
Okay, let’s go for it. You are getting Pac-Man (1980), Super Pac-Man (1982), Pac & Pal (1983), Pac-Land (1984), Pac-Mania (1987), Pac-Attack (1993), Pac-In-Time (1995), Pac-Man Arrangement (1996), Pac-Man Arrangement (2005), Pac-Man Championship Edition (2007), Pac-Motos (2007), Pac ‘n Roll Remix ( 2007), Pac-Man Battle Royale (2011) and Pac-Man 256 (2016).
If you played, or were even aware of, all of those Pac-Man games before this museum release, then hats off to you. You should clearly email Mastermind and choose it as your specialist subject. Watching a trailer for the collection, it’s almost wilful in terms of how many unusual spin-offs are included. There are puzzle games, Monkey Ball rip-offs and even battle royales included here.
These aren’t just bland ports, either. Missions have been added for some of the original games alongside the customary Xbox achievements, while you can earn coins to deck out your own private arcade, which can be customised and wandered about as your own Pac-Man avatar. Worth dropping some pills for.
These two games signal the end of the Game Pass launches for May, with more to be announced for June in the coming few days.
All that remains for May are a few Game Pass leavers. At the end of the month, we lose EA Sports NHL 20 (Console), Farming Simulator 19 (Cloud, Console, and PC), Knockout City (Console and PC), Resident Evil 7 Biohazard (Cloud, Console, and PC), Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest (PC), Superhot Mind Control Delete (Cloud, Console, and PC) and Yes Your Grace (Cloud, Console, and PC).
Which of the Pac-Man games have you most interested? Let us know in the comments or on our social channels.