Pac-Man (Android)

Pac-Man holds a unique position in gaming culture, playing the part of both elder statesmen for the medium and digital floozy, gobbling his dots on any platform that will have him. And so it comes as little surprise to see Namco's creation turn up as one of the early major releases on the budding Android platform.

What's perhaps more surprising is that Namco has willingly thrown its iconic yellow blob onto the Market service. As G1 owners will know, that means that you can download it – for now at least – for free. Quite a brave move for an established developer and an area that we'd really like to see others dip their toes into, rather than holding out for a fully fledged retail model or devising their own.

Anyway, enough of the platform politics. How does Pac-Man play on the G1 Android-prototype? Okay, awfully and pretty well is the short and rather confusing answer. You see, Namco has rather generously adapted the classic mazey gameplay to each of the G1's three control mechanisms – the touchscreen, accelerometer and trackball respectively.

Starting with the touchscreen, or Swipe Mode, a brush of the finger in any of the four directions will send Pac-Man off accordingly. This is fine when you're traversing simple corners in isolation, but the method proves unreliable when negotiating tight spaces that require swift consecutive directional changes – especially when there's a ghost or three on your tail.

Still, Swipe Mode is like having a finely crafted joystick in your hand compared to Accelerometer Mode. The Help screen advises you to hold the G1 at a 60-degree angle and tilt the unit accordingly, but in practice you'll find yourself making drastic twists and turns as old man Pacs continues towards a supernatural death, seemingly oblivious to your subtle commands. As your movements get more exaggerated, of course, you see less and less of the screen. And when you return the G1 to the default position, the game will often read it as a turn in the opposite direction. It's a mess.

Fortunately the last control method is a relative success. For arcade classics such as this there's no replacement for a solid, tactile mechanism for play, and the G1's trackball comes the closest to mimicking the original four-way joystick that Pac-Man was designed around. There are still issues when it comes to evasive manoeuvres – it's still an analogue device playing at being digital, after all – but it's playable and by far the best method on offer here.

Moving away from the controls, Pac-Man's Android presentation is as simple and as timelessly cool as ever. In fact, it looks better than ever on the G1's large, bright screen, with the spare real estate at the bottom used for a working graphical representation of the classic arcade cabinet joystick. Handy for acclimatising to the two less wieldy control methods, all but useless when you're in the thick of the action.

For all your fancy analogue technology, Pac-Man belongs to a resolutely digital, binary age. Up, down, left, right – anything in between is just baggage to weigh you down. Even the best control method here is fundamentally unsuited to the task. But with just a little patience the timeless Pac-Man gameplay shines through, unhampered by needless graphical updates or grafted-on extras.

For giving early Android adopters such a pure version of an all time great free of charge, we warmly commend Namco and encourage all who haven't already to download this slice of history.