Ah, the early '80s: hairspray, pastel clothes, Flashdance and Pac-Man Fever.
Well, now you can keep your quarters in your pocket and play five classic Namco games right on your BlackBerry smartphone: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Galaga and Dig Dug.
Called the Pac-Man Fever collection, these remakes hold up incredibly well today thanks to faithful map layouts, intuitive control and authentic graphics and sound effects.
You know the rules for the various Pac-Man games: munch as many dots on the board as possible while avoiding the ghosts, but eating one of the four power pellets temporarily reverses the chase.
The alien-blasting Galaga and underground antics of Dig Dug will also slap a nostalgic smile across your face.
Available at Handmark, the individual games range in price from $9.99 to $14.99. Too bad there's not a discounted price for all five together in one download.
Game-play tips:
-- In the Pac-Man games, the fruits always move around the ghosts' starting pen. Use this knowledge to gobble up the fruits quickly in order to rack up bonus points.
-- Don't just focus on your next turn – think ahead by looking what dots need to be cleared, where your next power pellet snack will be, and of course, where the ghosts are headed.
- The secret to perfecting Galaga's challenging stages is to memorize the flight patterns of the aliens and position your fighter so you can shoot them quickly and efficiently. Try to arm yourself with a Dual Fighter ship, too.
By Marc Saltzman for USA TODAY
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