Pac-Man World ReviewPac-Man was a great arcade classic. Featuring a yellow hockey puck eating pills with ghosts chasing him around, who could not forget Pac-Man? Then they decided to move him to the third dimension. Pac-Man World, it would be called. How could you create a 3D game about a yellow puck eating pills in a maze....with ghosts? Well, they found a way. I remember wanting to play the original Pac-Man, so I brought this game in the hopes that it would include the original as a bonus. This turned out to be false (although Pac 'n Roll for the DS did include it, to my infinite enjoyment) yet the PS1 game had the option to play the original Pac-Man game. I had no idea how this game would turn out. A part of me said it would be fun, yet the other part said it would be a boring, terrible, painful abomination to the name "Pac-Man". Let's see who was right.
The game starts off with an opening cut-scene in the style very much like of Mario vs Donkey Kong, yet this is somewhat degraded. It tells the story of Pac-Mans family preparing a surprise birthday party for Pac-Man to celebrate 20 years of pac-ing (if that even is a word). Yet, Toc-Man is jealous of how popular Pac-Man is, and wants to steal his identity. He sends his ghosts to kidnap Pac-Mans family so Pac-man would save them and eventually come to him, in which he would defeat Pac-Man and become the real Pac-Man....somehow. Boy, there are a lot of Paccies in the Pac-Man family. There's Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac, Pac Jr., Professor Pac....wait what? There's a professor in the Pac-man family? Since when? Then there is Chomp Chomp the dog, and Pooka....whoever she is. And so Pac-Man arrives and finds the place deserted, and goes about to save his family.
So you start the game on a beach. The graphics are a little pastel, but they will do. The game displays the screen in a 3D view, but this can be disorientating to where you can land your jump. You can collect pills to increase your score, as well as cherries oranges grapes and other fruits that you might come across. the pills have a use, as you can use them to throw at any enemy you want, so long as they aren't a ghost. You can collect these glowing pills that will make you eat ghosts. In fact, you can get hit by ghosts four times before dying.
Pac-Man has new moves to help him get across to new places. And there are kinda fun to use. there's this thing you can use to smash to the ground, but bounce back higher - in which I use pretty much all the time for the sake of it. But it reminds me of the bouncing ability of Sonic in Sonic Adventure 2, and that came out on the DreamCast before this did. There is another move where he can charge up himself in a spin, and wiz across. Again, just like Sonic in the Sonic Adventure games. Could Pac-Man be the yellow incarnation of Sonic? Na, I must be imagining things. You can use these to great effect and land on a trampoline to bounce to and fro, which I must admit is a lot of fun. You can also roll up a hill using the Spin Dash....I mean the Rev Roll (I think that's what they called it), because the Spin Dash is something entirely different. Even though these seem like copies off some Sonic game, they are a great joy to use.
The level design is pretty fair. They are the straight forward "get to the end" type, with a hint of a maze like the original, and the end of a level is symbolized as a coin.. I didn't spot this as first. Maybe I'm just trying to relate this with the original. Each level includes six letters, which spell "Pac-Man". I don't know the reason for this. I tried to collect them all, but I seemed to miss a letter on one level. I tried to find it, and I searched every corner, every nook and cranny there was, and it wasn't there. I believed that you could play the original Pac-Man game if you found all the letters on all the levels, but after much searching on the internet, it doesn't seem to be true. I don't see a reason for the letters. Some doors are locked to those who do not posses the right type of fruit. Fruit.....as a key? Fruit.....as a key....No, sorry. I can't make sense of that.
You can swim, so that answers the question of Pac-Man being a rip off of Sonic. You can't attack while swimming, though. You can land on the bottom, and there you can stand and do a Rev Roll, but that's about it. You can use your bouncing thing to smash open chests which might include keys, fruit, pills or other stuff. Keys, I do believe, as used to free members of your family. I thought you saved them after defeating the bosses? The bosses don't strike me as the memorable type. There is only one as far as I'm concerned: Toc-Man, in which is fairly challenging.
The levels themselves are pretty devilish. You will die most of the time due to falling, and this is due to the odd 3D over view the game offers. You could dodge the enemies no problem, but I find the platform aspect of this game is the hardest part of the game. I think I'm about to land on it, but I seem to miss. This normally happens when the moving platform is moving forward and backward, and not left to right. The army of enemies you have to fight match the world you are in pretty well. There is the beach, the toy store, a spooky haunted graveyards and space. Yes, they have space. Why would you kidnap someone, and then take them all the way to space? I don't know...
When you kill enemies, bones seem to scatter around as a death animation. Even the ghosts have bones to scatter around. They're ghosts! They don't have bones! The enemies can be really cliche. In the haunted levels, there are skeletons, bats, ghosts - although the ghosts are the ones you see in every level - and a few others. There can be really annoying flame-throwers which were the second biggest killers to be. I had to be perfect in jumping to dodge them.
Overall, i give this game an 8.4/10 Truth be told, I really want to give this game a hard time. But the reality is, the core of the game is relatively addictive, fun and enjoyable. I thought this would be a terrible game, but it's half decent. I wouldn't say it is a must play, but I wouldn't say pass it up either. It is nice to see Pac-Man in a 3D view, and I think they did a pretty good job on it.
Graphics
7 Sound
8 Addictive
6 Depth
9 Story
3 Difficulty
8
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