Nintendo Developing a New Pac-Man Game

Leading up to the show, it had become apparent that Nintendo's most famous game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, would be bringing something new to debut at the company's annual pre-E3 press conference. But you really wouldn't expect Nintendo's surprise game to feature Namco's most popular character, Pac-Man.

The game will put one player onto a Game Boy Advance and three players on the GameCube. The Game Boy Advance player plays as Pac-Man, and he or she has a view of the maze similar to the one featured in the classic arcade maze game. The three GameCube players control the ghosts. The ghosts can see only their immediate surroundings, which makes tracking down Pac-Man a bit of a mystery. Catching and eating Pac-Man scores a point for a ghost player, who then takes the Game Boy Advance from the previous Pac-Man and becomes the new Pac-Man.

The game really looks more like a connectivity technology demo at this point than anything else, but it sounds as if Namco has approved the project and Nintendo is moving forward with development. No release date or details on what other options the game will feature have been revealed at this time.