Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Review
Game: Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
Developer: Namco-Bandai
Publisher: Namco-Bandai
Available On: PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 (Reviewed on PlayStation 3 via PSN)
“I used to be a pinball freak, that’s where you’d find me every week! But now it’s Pac-Man, yeah it’s the Pac-Man. I love to gobble up those dots, keep pumpin’ quarters in the slots. They call it Pac-Man, yeah it’s the Pac-Man. At the game arcade, they say I’m hardcore, I can play all day ’til my hands are sore. I quit my job just to play some more, but I won’t give up ’til I break high score”
Wierd Al Yankovic there, on Pac-Man, summing up the feelings of almost anyone who has ever played the original Pac-Man and is old enough to remember playing games in the arcade. Despite iterations throughout the years, Pac-Man Championship Edition is probably the pick of the bunch, but the Championship Edition DX is now upon us, asking people once more to give up their lives for the good of a high score table and a circular yellow character saying “Wacka Wacka Wacka Wacka”.
Just like with the last Championship Edition, Pac-Man CE DX builds on the age old mechanics from the original game, whereby you are Pac-Man, you have to eat the dots and evade ghosts. However, in CE DX (just like the standard CE before it) the screen is no longer full of dots and clearing the dots no long finishes a level. Pac-Man is a little more complicated nowdays and dots are only on one side of the screen at first, clearing those dots puts more dots elsewhere and…well, you get the idea!
New to the DX version are static sleeping ghosts that you can wake by passing in close proximity. Why would you do this you ask, are you a madman? Yes, but there is method in the madness! Waking up ghosts causes them to follow you and as more and more ghosts join the chase, you end up with a rainbow coloured tail. The mazes and dot locations are designed perfectly and if you get the route right, it’ll feel incredibly natural and you will eventually end up with that trail of ghosts and nowhere to go, sometimes a flat dead end!
That is, until you realise there is a pellet placed at that dead end and you begin to understand the genius of Pac-Man CE DX. The level design has been leading you to this point all along and despite panic/diversionary action you’ve still ended up there, upon that solitary pellet, with 30 ghosts so close to you they can smell your Pac-Man pants.
“BOOM! Pellet Get! You bastard ghosts are going down!” (Wierd Al 2010, probably*)
Suddenly, black is white, red is blue, up is down, the chasing ghosts realise the jig is up, turn tail and run, only, you won’t let that happen! Once again, the design shines through and when you turn on those ghosts you gain massive point bonuses toward that all important high-score. The feeling of satisfaction is the same now as it was thirty years ago.
There’s plenty of other new features though, including a fantastic slow-motion effect whenever you get too close to a ghost! The camera zooms in and slows right down giving you the chance to change course quickly and stay alive, though probably not for long! The difficulty settings create a variety and provide challenge according to player skill, switching up the amount of lives you start with as well as the amount of bombs and the game speed.
Bombs are a life saver, quite literally in Pac-Man CE DX, allowing you to knock the chasing ghosts off the map back into the central “cage” in the middle of the maze whilst you regroup. They have a negative effect too though, they reset the dot score multiplier and slow down the game speed. Talking of game speed, it’s quite hilarious to try the harder difficulties which start out very fast and keep getting faster, then going back to the easiest and musing on how slow it is.
Whilst the Score attack modes (5 and 10 minute versions) are where a lot of time will be spent, the time-trials are absolutely wonderful as well, giving you up to a minute per trial to get 8 fruits as quickly as possible, again all with the aim of beating your time and your friends times! Ghost Combo is a blast as well, where you have to stay powered up for as long as possible and eat as many ghosts as possible. All of these modes are playable in multiple ways across the 9 mazes on offer, which includes a maze from regular Championship Edition with the sleeping ghosts removed.
Visually the game is simplistic yet stunning. Neon lighting and bright colours are the order of the day. The game looks just like the previous CE edition and the now familar to everyone Pac-Man game start music along with all the other traditional sounds are present, along with some funky new music as well. Special mention should go to some of the maze visuals, including the likes of “Dungeon” with its retro styled look which is a joy to experience and should genuinely bring a smile to anyone’s face.
I’m sitting here, staring at a word count and wondering how it’s as high as one thousand. All these words for a Pac-Man game, in 2010? In all honesty, it’s just that good. If you’re an arcade game fan you should own this title. It’s a phenomenal reinvention of an ancient idea, brought screaming into the next generation with something that can sometimes play a minor role in the modern era of huge blockbuster titles, sheer gameplay fun. Of course there’s nostalgia to be had here, but that doesn’t disguise the fact that Pac-Man CE DX is a bloody great game.
“Hey mom, I won’t be home this year, please forward all my mail right here
I’m at the Pacman, yeah it’s the Pacman and you’re playing with no one but me”
Spot on Wierd Al, spot on!
*GodisaGeek.com has no affiliation with Wierd Al Yankovic whatsoever and his name was used purely as a comedic device.
