Pac-Man Vs. was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo EAD, created as a tech demo to show off the capabilities of the GCN link cable.
Pac-Man Vs. was met with generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised its interesting concept, multiplayer and addictive gameplay.
The player controlling Pac-Man uses the Game Boy Advance to play, the objective being to eat all the dots in the maze without being caught by a ghost.
The remaining players will take control of the ghosts on the television screen, who must catch Pac-Man before he eats all of the pellets in the maze.
[1] A short demo was shown off at the Games Convention in Germany, simply titled Pac-Man for Nintendo GameCube, where it gained a sizable amount of attention.
In North America, the game was released as a pre-order extra with the GameCube versions of I-Ninja and R: Racing Evolution, and bundled with the player's choice re-release of Pac-Man World 2.
The multiplayer aspect of the original GameCube release was re-used for the online battle mode in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (2007).
[7] Pac-Man Vs. was met with generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised its clever take on the core gameplay, multiplayer and replay value.
[10] Nintendo World Report highly praised the game's multiplayer aspect for keeping the gameplay frantic and fast-paced.
[10] In their review for Namco Museum DS, Retro Gamer magazine said the package was worth it for Pac-Man Vs. alone, praising its addictive gameplay and multiplayer focus.
[11] While IGN and GamePro found the commentary from Mario to be annoying,[10][9] Nintendojo said that it was helpful for when something happens outside the player's vision, although commented that it was largely unnecessary.