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‘Pac-Man Championship Edition 2’ coming to Xbox One, PS4, PC in September

By Danny Cowan July 20, 2016

Video game icon Pac-Man is set to star in a new pellet-munching maze game for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PCs that recalls his earliest arcade adventures from the 1980s, publisher Bandai Namco announced this week.

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 will update the classic Pac-Man formula with new gameplay mechanics and a collection of tricky neon-tinted levels that will challenge die-hard arcade fanatics.

Footage shown in a trailer released Wednesday reveals that Championship Edition 2 will stick closely to the gameplay style introduced in 2007’s Pac-Man Championship Edition, which featured a series of timed challenges across varied mazes. Racing against a ticking timer, players must gobble all of the onscreen dots in their path and complete as many consecutive levels as possible while evading a gang of pursuing ghosts.

Championship Edition 2 will also retain many gameplay mechanics seen in the series’ 2011 follow-up Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and its expansion DX+, such as equipping players with bombs that they can drop to temporarily stun their pursuers. Championship Edition DX‘s sleeping ghosts will also return, giving players a chance to rack up high-scoring combos after consuming power pellets.

New features in store for Championship Edition 2 include teleporters, tilted mazes, and giant ghosts that lurk behind the playing field. This week’s trailer also suggests that boss battles will play a role in Pac-Man’s latest adventure – a rarity for the series.

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 follows up on the recent multiplatform release of Pac-Man 256, an endlessly scrolling action game in which Pac-Man must flee from a world-devouring glitch. The original 1980 arcade version of Pac-Man was also recently reissued for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 alongside its popular sequel, Ms. Pac-Man.

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 launches digitally for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PCs via Steam in September.

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Anyone who wants to score the Thunder Shotgun in Season 2 can head over to Frenzy Fields and look for the NPC named Sunflower who walks around the farm. Simply eliminate her and pick up the weapon she drops. It's unclear if this is actually something Epic missed, or if the team just simply didn't want to bother changing up Sunflower's loot drops. Either way, it's currently the only way to obtain the Thunder Shotgun.

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Jazz Chisholm's cover art for MLB The Show 23.

Sony San Diego Studios announced MLB The Show 23 today, and confirmed that it will launch across all major PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo systems on March 28.
No new platforms were added this year, so PC players aren't getting in on the fun. Still, this announcement makes it clear that MLB The Show is a multiplatform series across PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo platforms for the foreseeable future. Xbox's version of the trailer also confirms that MLB The Show 23 will be on Xbox Game Pass at launch, making this first-party Sony series a day-one Game Pass title three years in a row.
MLB The Show 23 - Cover Athlete Reveal
As is typically the case with sports games, MLB The Show 23's reveal was primarily focused on its cover athlete. We learned that Jazz Chisholm Jr., a second baseman for the Miami Marlins, will grace the cover of the game. Like last year, the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch versions of the game will cost $60, while players on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S without Xbox Game Pass will need to pay $70. So far, no new gameplay features have been teased, although a blog post confirms that cross-platform multiplayer, saves, and progression across all versions of the game will return this year.
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If you love game history, you need to try Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration

Video game collections are becoming more common these days as companies look back on their past. That’s great for game preservation, but collections like Super Mario 3D All-Stars can ultimately feel underwhelming when the end product is little more than a simple port. Atari’s classic lineup of games is no stranger to this treatment; you can play an Atari 2600 game collection on pretty much any platform you desire. Due to the overwhelming amount of Atari collections out there, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration might not seem like a compelling release at first.
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Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration Trailer
In practice, Atari 50 feels like a museum exhibit-turned-video game. It made me feel like I was walking through the Smithsonian’s The Art of Video Games exhibit for the first time, except everything is about Atari's 50-year history. Not only does Atari 50 contain everything from Pong to some of the weirdest titles the Atari Jaguar had to offer, but it embellishes those games with trivia, scans of game-related material from the time, and video interviews with people connected to them. Anyone who loves gaming history owes it to themselves to check out Atari 50.
Eclipsing other collections
Digital Eclipse has been bringing old games to new platforms for years -- it made Atari game collections for the original PlayStation. Over time, it has slowly put more effort into its approach, moving beyond mere emulation. Earlier this year, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection included the Turtle’s Lair, which had boxes, manuals, ads, catalogs, comics, TV show clips, and development document. Atari 50 takes that one step further by transforming similar content into exhibit-like Interactive Timelines.
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Meanwhile, “The Dawn of PCs” recounts Atari’s efforts in the PC space from the Atari 400 and 800 in 1979 until the rare Atari Falcon’s release in 1992. Finally, “The 1990s and Beyond” covers everything else, emphasizing the Atari Lynx handheld and 32-bit Atari Jaguar home console. Games will pop up as players navigate these timelines, and you can play them at the press of a button. As is always the case with Digital Eclipse collections, the emulation is smooth, and players can access various visual filters and even the instruction manuals when pausing.
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