PAC-MAN, Pixels, and Cinemagic Headline Bandai Namco's Mobile Lineup at Global Gamers Day

Last week Bandai Namco celebrated Global Gamers Day in Las Vegas, showcasing a number of new games in their lineup for 2015. And a few mobile games as well.

First off, there was talk of a big update for PAC-MAN. It's not out yet, but once it's live players will be able to take advantage of an improved interface that makes choosing between available mazes a bit easier, pick from three revamped difficulties (Easy, Hard, and Original), and will have access to online tournaments against other players. A similar interface update is planned for Ms. PAC-MAN, but there's been no confirmation of the tournement mode making it's way over. At least not yet.

Also on the PAC-MAN front, PAC-MAN CEDX should finally be coming out this summer. A big part of the delay is because Bandai Namco has been listening to fan feedback and has completely scrapped the free-to-play model in favor of a premium download. It's going to offer controller support, too!

Cinemagic was also on display. This silly match-3 movie-making game seems largely unchanged from the version that was shown off last year at E3, but it still looks like fun. And from what I've played of it, I think it will be. It's still all about picking actors and themes, then matching the appropriate symbols within a set move limit to make your movie as efficiently (and as good) as you can, and I'm okay with that.

Finally, we got to see a very early build of an upcoming tower defense game based around "Pixels," the new film staringAdam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, and Peter Dinklage that's due out this summer. Granted it was still in an alpha state (maybe even pre-alpha), but it seems to have potential. On top of the typical tower defense stuff - and a little Kingdom Rush style use of controllable heroes (or "Arcaders") - it also provides players with the option to designate target priorities. This means you can set turrets to target random enemies, those that are fastest, and so on. It's probably not the first tower defense game to try this, but it's an interesting feature nonetheless.