Nerd Mentality

Pac-Man World 2

Posted by Archived.

Pac-Man is perhaps the most recognizable video game icon in history. He is known by all, whether the person is a video gamer or not. However, with the degradation of the arcade industry and the recent generations of consoles going to 3d and away from puzzle gaming, Pac-Man's classic genre and gameplay was obsolete. Knowing this, Namco decided to create a platform game for the 20th anniversary of Pac-Man, Pac-Man World. The game, which was available only for the Playstation, received moderate critical success and now the sequel has been released for the Gamecube.

The story is very generic, but it's a platform game, a genre which isn't known for the gripping storylines. As it is, four ghosts decide to enter Pac Village and have a little fun. While they're at it they grab the five golden fruit off of the tree in the middle of the village, releasing Spooky, a ghost who was trapped under that tree many years ago by Pac-Man's ancestors. Pac-Man then has to go and retrieve the golden fruit from the 4 ghosts, Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde, and return Spooky back to his jail.

Pac-Man's heritage is seen throughout the game. Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde are the names of the ghosts from the original Pac-Man arcade game. Pac-Man also has to collect pellets and fruits, the two staples of a good Pac diet from the original mazes. There are also new mazes that are graphically in full 3d but control exactly like the 2d mazes, so that Pac-Man will just go straight in the direction you pushed until you change directions.

The crux of the game, though, is still 3d platforming. The level system is very linear. Pac-Land consists of six worlds, each of which has a certain amount of levels within them. The levels themselves are accessed from an overhead map and unlocked as Pac-Man progresses through his adventure. Simply move Pac Man to the level you wanna play, hit A, and he'll start that level. The levels themselves are also very linear. The only real goal is to get from the beginning of the level to the end without losing all 4 parts of your health bar. Sure, there are pellets and various fruits to collect along the way, but they're not necessary, with the only reason to obtain them being to complete the level 100%. The levels also have checkpoints in case you die, so you don't need to restart from all the way at the beginning of the level. While this is definitely helpful, especially in later levels, it does make the game easier as it's a lot harder to go through the entire level with only one health bar, as opposed to starting from the middle of a level which makes the challenge slightly easier.

The controls in the game vary depending on the style of level. In the basic platforming level, A is used to jump, pressing A in the air will do a butt bounce and pressing B in the air will do a flip kick. Pressing B while standing will do a rev roll, which basically is a lot like Sonic when he will roll in spot, get up speed and then shoot forwards. The longer you hold B the farther he goes. These moves are used to traverse the levels, defeat enemies, etc. The only exception is ghosts which have to be defeated, like in the mazes, by getting Power Pellets, which will then turn the ghosts blue and allow Pac-Man to eat them.

There are three other kinds of level. There are a few levels which have Pac-Man on skates where you press forward and just basically hop and jump your way over the platforms. It's a nice break up from the monotony and is a bit of fun. There is a level where you're running towards the screen and away from a giant snowball. While it can get tricky at times, the camera is usually back far enough for there not to be a problem. The third type of level is underwater. In these levels Pac-Man is equipped with either a submarine or scuba gear. The level is constantly moving forwards and you have to avoid obstacles. These levels can get very annoying because of the camera. The view from behind doesn't allow for a great angle. As well, collecting pellets and fruit is made more difficult because the depth perception isn't great, and it's very hard to tell where the pellets are relative to you.

In fact, most of the problems with this game emanate from the camera system. The camera will basically follow you, but it is also very free and left in the player's hands to operate. This wouldn't be a major concern, except most times when the camera has to be turned or moved, the game won't allow you to. There were multiple instances where I was forced to jump or to move on a ledge without being able to see where I was. Obviously this gets frustrating very quickly when you're losing lives that you shouldn't be. The other problem is the depth perception. The pellets are so small and don't stick out in the 3d world so it's hard to tell how far away from you they are.

The other problem is the game's length. The game can easily be finished in a few hours the first time through. The levels can be replayed, but the only reason to do that is to get 100% on each level. Doing that will take awhile, but only because you have to get everything in one pass through the level, and when it's an on-rails level if you miss something you have to do the whole level also. With upwards of 200 pellets on each level and another 30 fruit it can get frustrating when you do it perfectly but miss that one pellet. There is one more thing that can be collected on each level: tokens. These tokens can be used to unlock old Pac-Man arcade games which can be played by 1 or 2 players, depending on if the game originally supported it.

The game itself looks very bright. Like most platform games Pac-Man World 2 is filled with bright greens, reds, and other colours. Of course Pac-Man, himself, is yellow, just adding to the brightness. The textures in the game do seem fairly bland, with not much put on the characters other than the basic colour. The strangest thing, however, was Pac-Man's face. He seemed to have a permanent smile that spanned his whole face. It was extremely frightening. Some of the enemies in the game, though, looked terrible. The sharks being the best example, they were very low in polygons and had a basic gray texture. Nothing beautiful.

There is also a small problem with how much can be seen. The earlier levels in the game are all enclosed so the draw distance is fine, but once you get to the later levels outdoors the fogging is horrible. In some of the levels, especially the submarine ones, it's impossible to see what's coming up. While there is also some slowdown, it's extremely rare and when it does happen the game doesn't slow down enough for the gamer to notice.

The music in the game was enjoyable. It fit the game very well and it did stick for a little while in my head. There only seemed to be a few tunes, but they were all changed just enough for each level to seem different. Also, at the end of each level the classic Pac-Man tunes for the end of a maze play. It was nice to see the sounds from the game's past added. The noises for collecting were pretty standard, but also sounded like in the past when collecting pellets. Special attention was also paid to other areas, where walking on wood was different from walking on grass. Voices were in the game, and were humourously done. The bad part is that they were only there during the FMV's. It would have been nice if they were added for other parts of the game where Pac-Man is talking to people as well.

This game gets an N-Philes score of B.

Pac-Man has a lot of history in his past. It's nice to see Namco acknowledge it when they make a new game for him. While the Pac-Man World series may not be the best platform series in the genre it is definitely fun. The camera hampers the experience considerably, but the fun of the main game itself is still there.

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