You should look a gift horse in the mouth to see how far down on the gift chain you are.
Pac-Man Vs is not sold by itself as a stand-alone game, although it's certainly not too hard to get. Twenty bucks will bag it and Pac-Man World 2 together, and there are copies floating around that were intended as preorder bonuses for I-Ninja or R: Racing Evolution. It might be possible to get one just by sweet-talking a GameStop employee. While you're there, pick up a GBA-GC link cable, too; you'll need it.
One player uses a GBA. That's Pac-Man, back at the daily grind and eating dots. The other one-to-three players watch the TV, controlling their ghosts on a split screen with limited viewing range. In the event that there aren't enough players, any non-player ghosts are harmless and grey, until they are 'tagged' by a player ghost. The computer ghost is now on the player's "team." A little strategy further than "get Pac-Man!" needs to be used here; a player needs to consider whether or not to spend valuable time trying to tag ghosts.
Anybody who foolishly wanders into a Nintendo fanatic's house will have no problem getting into this game and understanding how to switch controllers. It only takes a moment to get into the action - turn on the GameCube and GBA, pick a maze, and it's go-time. No person is bound to a single controller - it's a simple process of just trading a controller with the GBA. It's easy to keep track of, and doesn't hold up the gameplay for more than a couple seconds. Clever! Try this game out on your parents. This a game even they can play. Hell, they've probably been playing Pac-Man since before you were born and will subsequently beat you down.
Each maze has its own intricacies and strategies, but plain ol' psychology will probably determine success over other players. The ultimate goal is to get enough points to win - the ghosts may need to work together to keep Pac-Man from getting points, but they're also competing with each other to be the one that actually catches Pac-Man. There's only one winner in this battle royale, so please by all means try to stab your friends in the back as hard and often as possible.
A friend once said, "you should look a gift horse in the mouth to see how far down on the gift chain you are." Sure, Pac-Man Vs is free, but I can still gripe about how there's no single-player mode with AI, or that it doesn't have the Ms. Pac-Man mazes, or how Nintendo didn't feel the need to give me a thousand dollars for nothing. I could contemplate the idea of it being a great arcade-game, or how it could be expanded on in a sequel, but honestly, it's all filler. You, the reader, are the one looking a gift horse in the mouth by reading a review about a free game. For shame! Maybe the local GameStop has extra ones just sitting there. Go get 'em.
