Bless Xbox Game Pass and its Day One titles, because while it's always nice to get a big AAA title on Game Pass at launch, it's just as fun to get that opportunity to step back in the time machine. The announcement of "Pac-Man Museum+" had me very interested: I've grown up on "Pac-Man," but not the entirety of the franchise. In my youth, I definitely played the classic game before because it's one of the greatest things ever created, but other than that, I was more into the 3D "Pac-Man World" titles. Thus, when I heard a collection was coming featuring 14 classic adventures in the franchise, I was excited to see just how much mileage Namco got out of "Pac-Man" back in the day. Turns out this collection surprised me even more than I thought it would, to the point where it was hard to put down the controller.
"Pac-Man Museum+," on the surface, is the 2014 collection with some added games for good measure. Compared to the original, I'd say this is probably one of the most comprehensive "Pac-Man" collections you could possibly find (even if there's a potentially legally bound "Ms. Pac-Man"-sized elephant in the room). As my first experience with a vast majority of the collection, it's crazy to me just how Namco was able to take such a simple formula and twist it in many ways to make successive games feel unique. Even if it might seem easy to scoff and say that most of the games are "just 'Pac-Man' again," so many of them have their own nice flavor to make them fun. I really enjoyed getting to play "Pac-Land" for the first time, and "Pac-Man Championship Edition" might be my personal favorite game in the collection. The games are also emulated well, and it's really cool that the collection features missions and online leaderboards that encourage playing individual titles over and over again. Adding icing to the cake is the overworld itself, where you can make your own customized arcade setup for all the "Pac-Man" games. It's a nice addition with plenty to collect and unlock, making this feel like a nice celebration of one of gaming's most iconic and long-running characters.
That said, it's not a perfect collection (for reasons that don't involve legality, "Ms. Pac-Man," or elephants). As I mentioned, I played the Xbox version of the game through Game Pass, and I noticed a few glitches with missions and achievements. Some of them have been fixed up, but don't be surprised if a few games don't give you credit for completing missions. Also, while the games are generally pretty good, there is one title whose inclusion sticks out like a sore thumb in the worst way: "Pac-In-Time." This 2D platformer is by far the biggest stinker on the collection, and one of the few games that really feels like it didn't need to be included. The finicky controls alone doom it from the start, and it's by far the biggest throwaway in the collection. Also, button mapping being tied to the X button can mess things up a bit, because it constantly feels like the button should be important to the games being played.
Overall, "Pac-Man Museum+" is a wonderful celebration of one of gaming's biggest icons. It's a reminder of what made the character so great, and it's a showcase of just how much Namco was able to play around with such a simple concept and get so many unique gameplay experiences out of it. If you own the previous "Pac-Man Museum," your mileage with this may depend on how enticing the new titles sound, but otherwise, this is about as comprehensive a "Pac-Man" collection as you could possibly get, and it's a definite recommendation. And if you're like me and you have Game Pass, you owe it to yourself to download this game and take the time to appreciate one of gaming's OGs and his incredible lineage.
Final rating: 8 out of 10 "Great"