Pac Man Championship Edition DX

I see what the difficulty levels change, but does anyone know how they effect leaderboards?

As far as I can tell, it doesn’t, but at expert you start at higher speed which means getting more points. I cannot imagine topping the leaderboards in anything but.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

I am not accusing the developers of anything; I am simply describing how it felt to me to play. Note the repeated use of phrases such as IT FEELS LIKE.

This is how game designers talk to each other when they are genuinely interested in each others’ games and in making the best game possible. I don’t think it is douchebaggery; I think it is how we all improve at game design.

Congratulations on graduating from douchebaggery to bullshittery.

Comparisons to Snake and a massive level of “JUST ONE MORE ROUND” happened to me, AC.

Favorable comparisons, mind, some kind of Pac-Snake hybrid of absolute joy and a stunningly large level selection.

Ryan Markel set up a tourney of sorts in this thread. If you can beat the current high score of 818,360 you should go there and submit your score.

Does anyone know when this is coming out on PSN? I love Pac-Man CE but would like this opportunity to buy the new one on a console with a workable D-pad.

Jonathan’s comments sort of make sense to me from watching trailers. It looks more like something along the lines of Space Invaders Extreme than the subtle, simple original, but I don’t really have a problem with that.

It’s a great modern take on a classic. It manages to retain the classic feel of Pac Man while still adding a lot of design improvements to the formula.

As far as the d-pad goes, I wouldn’t really worry about it, the game plays great with the analog stick. Much like Super Meat Boy, it may initially appear to be the kind of game that works better with the d-pad, but it’s not.

Personal anecdote, the analog stick starts showing it’s limitations around speed 40 for me.

I’m using my Street Fighter IV dpad. and I feel much more in control.

I haven’t had any issues at 50 with the analog myself, but I’ve usually got my moves planned fairly far ahead. If I’m not sparking, I’m already dead.

Okay, so this game is amazingly great.

Jonathan - I have no idea how much the demo gives you, but the full game feels very much like the “e-sports”, skill-based climb for more points that the original Pac Man CE did. The rules have changed, but it’s still a game about very quickly building a strategy for the path you’ll take and trying to execute it at an ever-quickening pace.

It would seem at first that the bombs and super-long train of ghosts, not to mention bullet-time, are all gimmicks to make the game more sensational and less skill-based. In practice, it’s anything but. The long train of ghosts starts to get in your way if you don’t take the time to gobble them up, and the bombs and bullet time keep you alive but also keep the pace up. It’s the same feel as the first game, made more relentless.

Having played the demo before buying it I can see why Jonathan wasn’t thrilled with it. As it’s hard to see how you can use everything for a high score.

With that said the full game was great, I’m seeing high score potential with purposely waking the ghosts and using the pellet filled ghosts to keep your invincibility up. My biggest problem is that when I hit 50 speed I’ve lost sight of Pac-man several times, I think my first shot at the 5 minute game on the first board I beat everyone’s score on my friend’s list.

I’m really, really glad I jumped on this, because if I’d just played the demo I’d never have gotten it. The game really needs its full time show off what makes it great, especially the careful balancing act between ghost eating/stringing. I’m not sure I’d really call it Pac-Man still, I’d even venture the game was developed as a new puzzle-action game, and the license was used to give it a fair chance in the wild.

Doesn’t matter, really. Whatever it is, it’s great, the kind that leaves you playing for an hour on accident when you went in for a ten minute round. The wide level/mode variety only adds to the greatness, but the new score attack stands quite well on its own.

I don’t know about that. I found myself cursing the d-pad a lot when playing the original, to the point where I usually ended up using an arcade stick. The analog stick works okay in terms of accuracy, but still doesn’t feel right.

Since a lot of people seem to like it, I bought the full version and played the 5 minute mode on every level up through Dungeon.

I still feel the same way about the game. (Dungeon, especially, is just silly).

If nobody agrees that this game feels like pandering, then I have to ask what would an excessively pandering version of Pac-Man play like? In what ways would it be different from this?

On the analog vs dpad thing – I played with the analog stick, and when the game speed got up around 40, I found myself slipping and missing intersections all the time (especially on levels with lots of tiny squares like Manhattan). The game probably would play better at high speeds with a good dpad (though not, of course, the 360’s notorious dpad).

I grew up with Atari joyticks and NES dpads in my hands, before graduating to a mouse/kb for the next couple decades. It isn’t until recently I started screwing around with thumbsticks, so admittedly my skills with them probably suck compared to the folks who grew up with thumbsticks.

Although my own experience with thumbsticks starts to suffer around speed 40, it is probably just as likely that my experience with dpads is all that’s making the difference.

What do you even mean by calling the game “pandering”. What aspects of it come off that way to you? Your criticism of the game doesn’t make sense.

FWIW, the dpad on the special edition Xbox controller is really good:

I haven’t played any mainly dpad controlled games with it but in normal use I have yet to miss hit on a directional command paging through friends or menus or assigning attribute points. It is super accurate.