Video Game Review: Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

When Pac-Man Championship Edition first came out to Xbox Live a few years ago, it was fantastic. A great update to an old-school game from the 80s that left you wanting more. Now with the DX version out on both Xbox Live and PSN, it is pretty much flawless. In fact, they should've called it Pac-Man Perfect Edition.

The gameplay builds on the previous iteration with some new tweaks thrown in. It's still score-attack based, meaning you try to score as much points as you can before time runs out or before you lose all your lives. You eat all the pellets on one side of the maze to make a bonus item appear, and once that is eaten, a new maze for that half appears. Ghosts still chase you around and once a power pellet is eaten, you can eat the ghosts while in powered up mode.

Now there is a difference in how the ghosts chase you. When you first start out, you will notice that they are in a sleep state with "Zzzz" coming out from them. But once you pass by them, you wake them up and then they will start chasing you. If you pass another sleeping ghost with the first one chasing you, then that one will fall in line with the first and starts following you and you keep repeating this method and, soon enough, you will have this huge ghost train following you all over the maze. This brings up some new tactics in terms of how to go about in the maze. If you have this long train following you, you cannot simply go circling in a loop or else you'll get trapped by the tail-end of the ghost train. You also don't have to wake up all of the ghosts, as once you eat the bonus fruit, whatever sleeping ghost is still in that state gets bumped off the maze for good. However, since this game is score-attack based, you want to have this large following of ghosts behind you, as once you eat a power pellet, you can then go back and chomp on all of the ghosts that have been following you, and as of right now, there is simply nothing more satisfying than getting to eat over 50 ghosts in one fell swoop.

This new type of ghost introduced brings in a puzzle element to the game, as how to go about in the maze to score as much as you can in such little time. Another example of this puzzle element is shown in the "Half" mode. In this game mode, as the name implies, only one half of the maze is covered in pellets and ghosts. However, the ghosts are blocking the path to those pellets, so you have to wake them up first to clear out the pellets, but then there's another level of ghosts blocking another path of pellets. So you really have to plan right there on the spot to know where to go without getting trapped.

One great thing about the game is it's tailored for anyone to jump right in and can even help them out at times. If an active ghost is too close to Pac-Man, then the game slows down, to which gives you a chance and maybe an opportunity to escape from a close call. Also added to the game are bombs. When detonated, they throw all active ghosts on the screen back to the middle of the maze, or the ghost pen.

And talk about game options, there are tons. There are several maze modes to play, to which in each mode has a 5 and 10 minute score attack mode, ghost combos mode, and short and long time trials. You can adjust the speed of the game before you start and even change the appearance of the game itself to the usual Pac-Man Arcade like style or to that of Pac-Mania style.

Perfect is the word when playing Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, to which you will have fun, you will get addicted, and you will say "One more time". And then you'll notice you've been up all night and then have to go to work in a few minutes.

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