Reviews 1

EVAC HD Review – Pac-Man on acid

EVAC HD Banner

Shadow Box and his evil red-boxes of unhappiness are on your tail, Pinky! Nom all the light-balls on the map whilst avoiding enemies and traps in order to open the portal and escape.

Title: EVAC HD | Developer: Hexage, Ltd.Genre: Arcade | Players: 1 |

Version: 1.0 | Size: 41.4MB | Price: $3.16 $1.56 sale!

EVAC HD QRCClick QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.

EVAC follows the Pac-Man formula (meets Tron), plus a few welcome enhancements. You play Pinky, a small, pink block, and your goal is to run around the map consuming all of the light-balls you can find. Once you eat the last one, a portal will open allowing you to escape. To keep your task from being too easy, angry red-boxes, dispatched by the evil overlord Shadow Box, are always hot on your trail.

As you frantically dart about the map, deftly outwitting the reds, you’ll find several tools at your disposal – mainly in the form of power-ups. In my time playing, I discovered Shocks (stuns enemies), Ghost (temporary invisibility), and Aura (kills enemies). You’ll also encounter yellow blocks that you can shove around. If you’re skillful enough, you can corner and squash reds with these yellow blocks, but their primary purpose is to trigger switches on the map.


Shadow Box has also littered the mazes with traps. Red alarm switches will trigger a swarm of red-boxes once touched, and spikes line some of the more challenging maps.

You’ll encounter 24 levels in EVAC which, unless they upgrade the d-pad to a more friendly version, should keep you busy (and frustrated) for a good while.

Controls: EVAC is controlled exclusively by a small, transparent d-pad. Unfortunately, the pad is a little too small for my taste, and I found it a bit frustrating to use. When you’re in the heat of a chase, the last thing you want to see happen is… well, nothing. By holding your finger on the pad for a couple seconds, it unlocks allowing you to relocate it somewhere else. On my Evo, this feature was pointless – the Home button is on the right-hand side of the screen, and I kept accidentally closing the game. Location of the pad isn’t so much of a problem as is the size. This game would’ve functioned much better using Minisquadron’s pad.

Graphics: All of the graphics in EVAC are glowy and techie – an interesting blend of Tron meets very, very basic lines and shapes. It’s a retro-futuristic look that provides an interesting twist, but the intentionally-dated style feels a bit… cheap.

Sound: The music and garbled, alien-speak of Shadow Box remind me of Totemo’s style – another Hexage title. Think Stargate. The background soundtrack is atmospheric and electronic, and fits the theme nicely.

Options: You can toggle dialogue and vibration, as well as adjust music and sound levels. If you’re working on besting your own high-scores, the constant interruptions of dialogue will only serve to cramp your style.

Verdict: While many people in the Android community are severely wow’ed by this game, I wasn’t overly-impressed. It’s a fun twist on Pac-Man style gaming, and has most likely the prettiest, glowy graphics to-date, but the d-pad is obnoxious and I’m not a huge fan of the dated, retro graphics. Nevertheless, EVAC is a solid title and a great arcade game for the price.

Rating: ★★★★☆

{gallery}galleries/evachd{/gallery}

Share This

You Might Also Like