Back in 2011, Namco had a very bright idea: create a team to breathe new life into some of their long-forgotten franchises and characters. ShiftyLook was born out of this idea, and through a series of webcomics (and games and other media), they succeeded admirably at their mission.But now, like the characters they were tasked to resurrect, ShiftyLook is destined to fall into obscurity; a soon to be distant memory."Now that we have successfully revived so many franchises," reads the latest update on the ShiftyLook website, "the heavy lifting is completed - and so is our work. We battled the video games abyss and won, which means it's time for us to move on and let the hit-makers play with some new toys."The early retirement of ShiftyLook spells a similar fate for many of its creations. Namco High, a fantastic dating sim/interactive fiction release that earned a near perfect score in our review last year, will have its servers shut down on Jun 30, 2014. Their mobile game BRAVOMAN: Binja Bash! will be suffering a similar fate, disappearing from iTunes, Google Play and Amazon at the end of this month.
Closures are a frequent occurrence in the social realm, but that doesn't make them any less of a bummer. This time around it's a variety of Namco games, including Pac-Man S, New Rally-X S, DigDug S, and Letter Labyrinth S.
A few years back, it seemed like Namco couldn't put Pac-Man's face on new games fast enough. From cool multiplayer experiences like Battle Royale to the seemingly inevitable pairing with pizza in Pac-Man Pizza Parlor, video games' first real mascot seemed to have a new release coming out on a monthly basis.
While you and your family are sitting down to a nice day of turkey dinner and family time, the online world is whipping into a frenzy to prepare for Black Friday - and some folks are even getting a start on the savings a day early! Take Namco for instance; they've lowered the prices on more than 30 iPhone and iPad games - many of which are 80% less than their regular price.