As many of you may already know, I’m a huge fan of Pac-Man.  So when I saw this Pac-Man card game, I had to get it and try it out!  I don’t know how long it’s been out, I got it on sale at Amazon for 5 bucks.  But I figured I’d review it anyway.

Here’s a bigger picture of the front of the box.

And here’s the back.

To play the game is super simple.  You place the shuffled deck in a pile and 2 to 8 players take turns drawing cards.  Whoever draws three ghost cards first loses.  Then whoever is the last one standing wins.  There are other types of cards, too.  Dot cards are like filler and don’t do anything.  Other items like bonus fruit act as special cards you can activate during your turn to do specific things like make opponents draw more cards or switch your hand with another player.  The rule sheet inside the box explains all this, so make sure to keep it handy since the cards don’t have any of that on them.  Here’s an example of what a hand might look like.

The rules also show you how to make the deck before you start playing.  There are two types of decks: simple and advanced.  The simple deck arrangement has less power-up cards and is good for beginners or younger players.  The advanced has more power-ups and such.  When you play with 8 players, you combine both decks!  Just make sure to shuffle the cards well, like with any card game.

Some may complain that this game is pure luck-based, and there’s not much to it.  And that’s certainly true.  Since pretty much everyone has heard of Pac-Man, they had to make this game appeal to the lowest common denominator so anyone can enjoy it.  But if you need a game to play with a wide range of age groups, or if you just want something to kill 15 to 30 minutes, this one does the job.

Kid Factor:

Since there are no words on the cards themselves, no reading skill is needed to play.  But someone in the group should still know how to read so they can check the rules sheet.  Because there are multiple difficulties in the decks, even pre-K kids can probably enjoy this.

Tags: Unplugged