Before Pac-Man XXXXXVIII Championship Edition DX Turbo, I had never played a Pac-Man game. I'd only heard the legendary, early gaming sounds, the ones that go "waka waka" and "Dudaduduuhduuh. dudiduddiduuhduuh -- duhdiduhdiduduehdiZork!" And now after having finally played it, I can confidently say, "I played a Pac-Man game."
NO seriously! It's excellent! That there are games this good that have only four inputs! When I see these games I'm amazed. And in other words, since this is Pac-Man, I'll skip the part where I explain where it's from and what makes it original from other games. You already know that stuff.
So the big question in this review is: What does one get from this 1080p Pac-Man? Well, one thing you get is: Pac-Man in 1080p. With nine mazes.
Now, the mazes are worth describing for your purchasing info, so listen carefully. The first six of its mazes come with three trial modes. The first trial mode is the maximize-your-score one, the second trial mode is the eat-as-many-ghosts-within-a-power-pellet-rampage one (you'll be given less than ten minutes to accrue ghosts on the screen). And the third trial mode is a lot of eat-set-amount-of-fruit-as-fast-as-you-can ones. The last three mazes offer, if I remember correctly, only the fruit-eating one, yet are interesting because parts of those mazes change when you eat fruit, and also because the last maze is dark. In it you're a light and you'll end up guessing where the paths are, feeling good about yourself when you guess right.
In case you were wondering: there are leaderboards; they are posted on the Internet and immediately accessible within the game. The game tells you where you place and in what percentile, and not just per maze but per trial. That it informs you by trial helps identify where you need to compete harder.
There are two more noteworthy features.
One is that, on any maze, you can change the way everything looks, from the maze to the dots; you can make everything look super retro, or super modern, or both. The other big feature is the slow-down mechanic, which might be a new thing (to Pac-Man). Basically how it works is, when you're near a threatening ghost, everything will go into slow-mo and zoom the camera in on Pac-Man, allowing you to pull off Matrix Pac-Man moves. It is also the reason why you will probably never die enough to lose any trial (along with all the bombs you'll have). Avoiding death isn't the point. It's the time and the dead ghosts and the scores and the split second decisions and strategy that bring the thrills.
The almost-downside to the slow-down mechanic is that you might go in and out of slow-mo and zoom-in and out really really suddenly, and thus throw your vision and rhythm off. I don't consider this a drawback to the game, though, as all players -- all your competitors -- have to deal with this issue, and also because the too-rapid slow-down speed-up zoom zoom rarely occurs. It happened to me only every two hours.
The other near-drawback is the lack in variety of the first six mazes. But having said that, the mazes ARE different from each other. And, if you feel like a maze is too similar to another maze you've played, just play another, differentier one.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is not one of my favorite games, but I can see why so many love it. It is elegent in its simplicity, almost always fun, not-addictive (in the WoW sense), and fifteen dollars. And did you know that the Pac-Man character is based on a pizza with a slice missing? And does that random sentence mean this review is over? Almost. For I've one more thought: If you've played lots of Pac-Man before and have had enough, I don't see this Pac-Man bringing you an original experience. But if you just want Pac-Man in your house, or have never played it before, then get this one.
★★★★★
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