PAC-MAN™ Championship Edition DX+

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is a 2010 maze video game developed by Chinese studio Mine Loader Software and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, later ported to Steam, Android and iOS. It is the sequel to the 2007 game Pac-Man Championship Edition, which was the last game developed by series creator Toru Iwatani. The player controls Pac-Man as he must eat all of the dots in the maze while avoiding colored ghosts that pursue him. A bonus item will appear once the player has eaten all dots on one side of the maze, causing the layout to change. Several additions were made over the original, such as bombs that send all ghosts to the regeneration box and sleeping ghosts that will give chase when Pac-Man moves past them. The development team wanted the game to focus on the excitement of fleeing from ghosts, and to appeal towards a more casual audience. Early prototypes experimented with increasing the number of power pellets and ghosts, leading to the sleeping ghost and "ghost train" mechanics being added. The neon art-style was inspired by the fluorescent lights used in early LCD handheld games, and was intended to help make DX stand out among other games. It was the first game released under the Namco Generations label, used for remakes of older Namco video games. Upon release, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX was met with critical acclaim, many calling it one of the best Pac-Man games ever made and one of the greatest video game remakes of all time. Critics applauded the game's addictive nature, replay value, intense gameplay and electronic soundtrack, and for being a vast improvement over the original. Some publications would give the game perfect scores. A 2013 update renamed it to Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+, adding several new mazes and gamemodes including a skin based on the original Pac-Man arcade game. An indirect sequel, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, was released in 2016.