You can never knock the software industry for lack of creativity when it comes to wringing new life out of old franchises. The most recent attempt is "Pac-Man All-Stars" (Infogrames, $20) for Windows. The original arcade game, available long before the days of the personal computer, had the Pac-Man figure, and later Ms. Pac-Man, cruising through a maze collecting pellets while trying to avoid the ghosts that were chasing them.

"Pac-Man All-Stars" takes the Pac-Man crew -- which also includes Pac-Man Jr. (shouldn't it be Pac-Boy?) and Professor Pac-Man -- and puts them in a three-dimensional world, allowing them to roam freely on the screen as pellets appear and ghosts continue their pursuit. In the original game, coming in contact with a ghost meant losing a life. In the new version, the ghosts are mostly a nuisance because the game is a four-way race with the other Pac-people. The ghosts steal points and hinder your progress. If you don't collect the most pellet points (or at least come in third when you're playing on the easy setting), you lose. The game has 25 levels in six settings that include a forest, a castle and a mine.