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I know there are a couple of guys here who dig the original (available in the Museum arcade), and a couple of video game console fans, too, so I thought I'd post this...
Bandai Namco recently released a sequel to the world-famous classic arcade game Pac-man on Xbox Live Arcade.
The new sequel is called Pac-Man Championship Edition, and it thankfully preserves the original 2D graphic style of Pac-Man while adding some modern touches (slightly tweaked graphics, great music). The basic gameplay is also the same; you are Pac-Man and you run through a maze eating dots while being chased by ghosts. Pac-Man CE adds a few twists to the classic gameplay.
First, instead of being vertically oriented, the board is horizontal (because that's how televisions are). The wider board is divided into halves. As you finish one half, bonus fruit appears. Eating that fruit repopulates the empty half of the maze with more dots and power pills. The result is continuous, frantic action; clear the board, eat the fruit, clear the other half, eat the fruit... no intermissions, no chances to wipe the sweat off your palm onto your jeans, and no way to catch your breath.
Power pills work the same; eating one will enable you to eat the ghosts that are tormenting you. However, the innovation this round is that if you eat a second power pill before the first one expires, the ghosts turn blue again, and your ghost chomping score stacks, starting at 400 points and ending at 3200 points per ghost. You can score a ton of points by timing your power pills correctly... I've gone through over a dozen ghosts at a clip.
You win an extra Pac-Man with every 20,000 points you score, too, and they can add up quickly, so the real consequence of dying is that you lose time (and score).
There are six modes of limited to five and ten minutes each, and the goal, obviously, is to get as many points within that time limit as possible. Planning the correct path to take in the maze while timing your power pills and monster eating for maximum points adds depth and replayability, and the ghosts add an element of randomness to keep things fresh.
That's where the obsessive part comes in... I have been sitting here all weekend playing this darned game, because in five minute chunks, I can keep saying, "Oh, just one more game," as I try to squeeze an extra few points out of my 5:00 time and push my rank on the leaderboard a little higher (right now, I'm sub-700 out of I don't know how many thousand). Then I look at the clock and a couple hours have passed and I realize my thumb is throbbing like crazy.
Even though it's 800 MS Points to buy ($10), it's well worth it, and I highly recommend it to anyone that owns a 360.
Bandai Namco recently released a sequel to the world-famous classic arcade game Pac-man on Xbox Live Arcade.
The new sequel is called Pac-Man Championship Edition, and it thankfully preserves the original 2D graphic style of Pac-Man while adding some modern touches (slightly tweaked graphics, great music). The basic gameplay is also the same; you are Pac-Man and you run through a maze eating dots while being chased by ghosts. Pac-Man CE adds a few twists to the classic gameplay.
First, instead of being vertically oriented, the board is horizontal (because that's how televisions are). The wider board is divided into halves. As you finish one half, bonus fruit appears. Eating that fruit repopulates the empty half of the maze with more dots and power pills. The result is continuous, frantic action; clear the board, eat the fruit, clear the other half, eat the fruit... no intermissions, no chances to wipe the sweat off your palm onto your jeans, and no way to catch your breath.
Power pills work the same; eating one will enable you to eat the ghosts that are tormenting you. However, the innovation this round is that if you eat a second power pill before the first one expires, the ghosts turn blue again, and your ghost chomping score stacks, starting at 400 points and ending at 3200 points per ghost. You can score a ton of points by timing your power pills correctly... I've gone through over a dozen ghosts at a clip.
You win an extra Pac-Man with every 20,000 points you score, too, and they can add up quickly, so the real consequence of dying is that you lose time (and score).
There are six modes of limited to five and ten minutes each, and the goal, obviously, is to get as many points within that time limit as possible. Planning the correct path to take in the maze while timing your power pills and monster eating for maximum points adds depth and replayability, and the ghosts add an element of randomness to keep things fresh.
That's where the obsessive part comes in... I have been sitting here all weekend playing this darned game, because in five minute chunks, I can keep saying, "Oh, just one more game," as I try to squeeze an extra few points out of my 5:00 time and push my rank on the leaderboard a little higher (right now, I'm sub-700 out of I don't know how many thousand). Then I look at the clock and a couple hours have passed and I realize my thumb is throbbing like crazy.
Even though it's 800 MS Points to buy ($10), it's well worth it, and I highly recommend it to anyone that owns a 360.
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