This dog is free from fleas

…is the only sense in which the word “free” is legitimately applicable in Namco’s new App Store blurb for Pac-Man Championship Edition (“NOW FREE: CHALLENGE MODE! NOW FREE: ALL 30 courses and 120 missions!”), as in “this game is now free from in-app purchases”.

What’s actually happened is that Namco have effectively made the game more expensive, by putting everything from the expansion pack into the normal edition and charging the previous full price of both of them ([£2.99]) for the new unified app. Previously you had the choice of just buying the base edition – which contained enough content for many players – and adding the expansion pack later, whereas now you have to buy it all straight away.

(Actually, if you previously bought the base edition and didn’t buy the DLC, this update WILL give you it for nothing – Scrupulous Fairness Ed)

But Pac-Man CE is great, and will inevitably be reduced in price at some point in the near future, and the updated version has a new virtual-analogue joypad option and incorporates GameCentre achievements and leaderboards, so we’re giving it another mention anyway. Call us old softies.