Freeware Pick – Pac the Man X

Half a million downloads, acclaimed by both television and magazine critics, Pac the Man X is touted as the best and the most popular Pac-Man clone for Macintosh. Adding the fact that it's totally free to download, install, and play, and you see why the game couldn't have not been named for a freeware pick.

Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are back! Pac the Man X has more than 140 challenging levels and a new difficulty level: Master. Available in single player mode only, Master plunges the levels in total darkness. Are you daring enough to try it?, reads the game's official description.

Developed by McSebi Software, Pac the Man X works pretty much as you'd expect. You're PacMan, and pellets, or “pac-dots” are scattered all around you waiting to be ingurgitated, while the four ghosts (known to most gamers as Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch you. Unlike the original PacMan game, if a ghost touches Pac-Man, you die. Actually, it's better if you think about it the other way around: if a ghost touches you, PacMan dies (we don't want to scare away the readers).

The game can be played by one or two players (simultaneously), it boasts several difficulty levels, 50 stages created by the makers, plus an additional 90 created by players worldwide, a level editor (of course), online high-scores, practice mode (in any level), and more. As far as visuals and sound go, Pac the Mac X boats 32-bit graphics with smooth animations (OpenGL accelerated), and multichannel sound effects (OpenAL) and MIDI soundtrack.

So, if you've been sold on the features, why don't you download this free PacMan clone and try it out. Requirements call for no more than Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) or later, a G3 running at 500MHz, or Intel Core processor (or faster) and a 16MB graphics card. An Internet connection will also be required to upload your scores, but not to play the game. Pac the Man X is a Universal application (compatible with Intel and PPC machines).