I’m not sure that Namco Bandai should ever be forgiven for dreaming up Pac-Man Party (or Pac-Man Kart Rally 3D or Pac-Land) but the venerable Japanese publisher is at least attempting to make amends. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is the direct sequel to one of 2009’s most inspired revivals.

Much like the first Pac-man Championship Edition, the new game will retain the core traditions of the series. You’ll navigate a two dimensional maze, gobble succulent fruit and play cat and mouse with ghostly adversaries. In short, this is a genuine Pac-man game, not a cynical grab for cash.

That’s not to say that the game is bereft of new ideas. Pac-man will have access to a range of new powers and weapons, while enemy movement patterns appear to have been daringly remixed. If the hypnotic new trailer is any guide, long suffering fans of the series will be handsomely rewarded for their perseverance.

Look for Pac-man Championship Edition DX on XBLA in PSN in spring 2010.

We at The Black Panel like to live by Conan’s Creed: “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentation of their women”. Sadly, our rivals are producing work that’s simply too good to ignore. Here are just a few of the sites we enjoy visiting.

Bite sized reviews and amusing observations from the talented Amy Flower

Knockout Ninty coverage from Matthew Williams and his team of experts

Super snappy multiplatform updates and a wonderfully delirious podcast.

An entertaining look at all things nerdy with Black Panel alum David Walden and team

Allow us to introduce Tokyo Jungle, the latest video game to depict a world in which just about everything has gone to hell. Enslaved and Fallout: New Vegas are the most recent examples of the genre and there are numerous others in the pipeline, including Rage, Hybrid and Metro 2034. With so many games competing for your post apocalyptic dollar, how can Tokyo Jungle hope to capture your attention? Well, for one, it boasts a rather novel point of distinction.

Forget about your typical end of the world scenarios. You won’t be racing across the desert in a battle scarred truck or decapitating zombies with a baseball bat. It’s too late for that. Humanity is done and dusted and the animals have inherited the earth (or downtown Tokyo, at any rate). You’ll inhabit the skin of a wild beast and your goal is to track and kill your prey while remaining one step ahead of your own natural predators, which, quite bafflingly, appear to include dinosaurs. The action plays out on a 2D plane.

A collaboration between Sony’s Japan Studio, PlayStation C.A.M.P. and Crispy’s, Tokyo Jungle is set for release on the PlayStation Network in 2011.

After four years developing almost exclusively for the Nintendo DS, 5^TH Cell is set to broaden its reach. While Drawn to Life and Scribblenauts were designed to appeal the handheld’s younger demographic, the newly announced Hybrid will explore darker territory when it arrives on the Xbox Live Arcade in 2011.

A fast paced shooter, Hybrid is set in a war torn future dominated by rival factions of super soldiers known as Paladins and Variants. The former, as implied by the name, appear to be at least somewhat concerned with the survival of the human race, while the latter could apparently care less. As mandated by video game law, one side is garbed in red, the other in blue.

Given 5^th Cell’s reputation as an innovator, the announcement of a third person shooter set in a post apocalyptic environment comes as something of a surprise. Here’s hoping that they bring something fresh to the battlefield.