So I grabbed the demo off of live and it does seem rather cool. Not quite sure if it’s $10 cool or not yet though. For $5 I’d definitely grab it. Anyone get the full version and have some thoughts?
For those that haven’t played it or don’t have a 360 it’s a new version of Pac-Man designed with wide screen tvs in mind. The play mechanics have changed in that you’re now playing against a clock and the maze is ever evolving. It starts out with a maze and a set of dots on the left and right sides of the maze. When you clear one side completely a fruit appears on the opposite side. When you get the fruit the cleard side morphs into a new maze with more dots. You can also keep chaining power pellets for some pretty huge ghost combos it seems.
I haven’t bought the full version, but IMO this is way too expensive, especially in light of Pac Man and then Ms Pac Man already being foisted onto XBLA.
I was pretty pissed about it, already having bought the original game. I skipped on Ms. Pac-Man because I didn’t see the need for both, even though I a preferred it over the original game. But I played the demo and found it to be pretty god damn fun. I went ahead and bought it, though I haven’t played it a lot. It definitely seems like the first genuine improvement on the Pac-Man formula since Ms. Pac-Man.
This is, importantly, much more than a remake. There are changes to the gameplay here that significantly alter the strategies needed to complete a level (which in this case means running out the clock).
This game is just amazingly good. I absolutely love it. I always loved the idea of Pacman more than the game itself. I loved watching other people play who knew what they were doing, but I hated playing it myself because the controls were never as responsive as they should be, and the whole gameplay experience has always been very awkward and not as fun as it could be.
But this truly feels like a real Pacman sequel. I know its hard to get excited about the sequel to a game that’s over a quarter century old, but this is definitely a very nice game.
They’ve divided up the maze into two halves, and when you get all the dots on one half, a fruit appears on the other half. When you eat the fruit, it changes the empty half into something else. It changes the shape of the maze and puts new dots in it. It keeps the gameplay flowing in one continuous sequence instead of dividing up into levels. Plus the controls are super responsive, and Pacman’s speed has been seriously pumped up. Whoever did this sequel really did a superlative job. They kept the classic gameplay, but really and truly improved on it.
Good job.
I bought it, but it did feel horrible playing $10 for it. I love the game and everything, but come on, that’s a little much. That’s the same price as Catan, for god’s sake.
Here’s a really nice article about the Pac-Man world championship. Don’t be fooled by the fact that its on Joystiq, this is a long but well-written piece.
Is it worth the 10 bucks? For me, most definitely. Sure it could use a few extra frills, but the core game play is solid and the 5:00 time limit give it a highly addicting just one of game kind of vibe. But for those of you who like to compare the value of your games against amortized price of a cheeseburger or movie, its probably not worth it.
I’ve known about this for while because we had to set up the top-secret reveal for the website. But honestly, my reaction from the screens and videos was “yawn, widescreen, glowing Pac-Man.”
Then I played it today. Holy crap, this game is surprisingly addictive. The new gameplay modes are a blast, the music’s cool, and the controls are great. I never got much into the original LIVE Arcade Pac-Man because I found it too hard to control with the analog stick or d-pad. They’ve nailed it here, though. After a few minutes of play, wrong turns or directional reverses back into ghosts were completely my fault, not the controller’s.
(Not that I don’t still wish MS would do an Arcade joystick…)
This is the best thing Namco has done with the Pac-Man franchise in years. A well conceived update of what made the original game so addictive. It’s pretty easy to stay alive for 5 minutes, but getting major points takes a fair bit of planning. I’m still trying to crack 200k. Almost did it last night.
The other modes are worth playing too as they have different maze configurations and the availability of power pellets during each phase of the game is different.
Special thumbs up for the music. It’s a 5 minute techno piece that gradually gets more urgent. It’s a great way to gauge how much time you have left without having to look at the clock.
I grabbed it and I really like it. It’s impressive how they can can take something as old an tired and copied so extensively as Pac-Man and with just a few tweaks make it fresh and fun. They didn’t add a jump button, or guns, or a new power pellet, they just modified the scoring put it on a time limit and changed level progression. Kind of surprising no one ever thought of doing that before in all these years of clones and bad sequels.
The one thing I wish they did have was an infinite random mode where the maze didn’t evolve on a set path. I kind of understand why they don’t have a random mode though, where they want to maintain a level scoring playfield for all players, as some of the mazes are far more conducive to ghost comboing.
The one other thing is there seems to be missed opportunity for cool achievements. Kind of surprised there isn’t one for an X level disparity in sides of the maze for instance.
I picked this up tonight, and it’s freaking great. I agree with the stuff I’ve read elsewhere - they really shouldn’t have named this “Championship Edition” because it’s honestly the first true sequel to Pac-Man yet. It’s Pac-Man 2.
Much like Geometry Wars, it’s a game about beating your last score and getting just that much further, and it’s pretty hard to put down. They really made something recognizably pac-man, but still fresh and unique. I was kinda iffy on getting it for $10, but I think I already got my money’s worth. I just wish I was better at it. :P
Except Gamespot! Warning: pointless rant about review scoring follows.
Gamespot needs to write some sort of disclaimer that Xbox Live Arcade games are on a different scoring system than other games–the 6-8 scale rather than the 7-9 scale. I swear, Xbox Live Arcade games never score much higher than 8 on their site, no matter how good they are. Castlevania is their highest rated Live Arcade game, and it got an 8.5. I guess they feared a riot by that game’s legion of diehard fans. Most of them score in the sevens or lower.
Pac-Man CE got a 7.9, despite the fact that they basically had nothing bad to say about it, other than that $10 is a little steep. I mean, you know you’re reaching for criticism when you have to put comments like “every mode has a time limit, so you’re always racing against the clock” under the cons section in your pros and cons blurb. Which is sort of like criticizing a shooter by saying “you’re always losing health, so it’s a constant fight to stay alive.” Well, DUH.
I mean, they spend an entire paragraph paraising the graphics and saying how they manage to look fresh but remain true to the original, and even put a comment in the “pros” blurb (“cool graphics”), and then give graphics a score of 7. Which is the same score they gave to value, the one thing the reviewer wasn’t happy about. Which is pretty much proof positive that review scores are just so much meaningless noise–Gamespot review scores doubly so.
Personally, I agree with the other posters here: Pac-Man CE is pretty damn slick.
