Pacman World (PS)

It's Namco's arcade classic, Pacman, now transferred from the arcade genre to the adventure genre, and it's not short or easy most of the time! Yet it retains most of the arcade genre features, including maze levels, and even the original arcade version of Pacman, in this game which is the 20th anniversary of Pacman.

It was Pacman's 20th birthday. His friends were coming to celebrate his birthday, but all of a sudden they were kidnapped. Pacman finds his party ruined, and knew that the ghosts were behind that mess and he went to rescue his friends, and stop Toc-Man, the robot Pacman that was behind all that mess.

The theme music is remixed from the original Pacman and some levels have parts of that great music! The theme music is my favorite in the game. The sounds are all realistic and fit to Pacman, yet there are the old nice sounds like his death sound, etc...

The graphics are well done especially for the PlayStation, nothing is blurred out and sometimes the graphics are so colorful. Pacman himself looks astounding and everything is crystal clear. And explosions are real, too.

The gameplay is the greatest part in the game, as in the past two games I reviewed. Pacman is not limited to chomping ghosts now, or collecting pac-dots and power pellets, but now it’s an adventure with mind thinking and stuff like that. You have health and have to keep it up if you want to get past the game. You can do butt-bounces to bounce off trampolines and kill non-ghost enemies, and you can rev-roll to open some doors and fly through a gap by a rev-roll platform, and kill non-ghost enemies using it. He can even throw the pac-dots at non-ghost enemies, and he still has his power pellet to kill the ghosts for a short amount of time. But is that really it? Nope, there is more than just that. The fruits that earn you more points in the original Pacman are used now as keys to doors that might include 1-ups, switches, or even something that will make you advance in the current level. Even Galaxians, are now used as keys to doors that will lead to mazes that are played the same way as the original arcade Pacman mazes, but with the health Pacman World featured.

Finally, you have access to an arcade mode where you play the same exact version of the arcade Pacman we all are used to. Without any additions either! So by having Pacman World, you also have the original arcade version of Pacman at your PlayStation, ready to be played at any time.

CONCLUSION

The story was to rescue your family and stop the bad guy, the music and sound were good, the gameplay is an amazing change in the Pacman world, and the addition of the nostalgia arcade version of Pacman, makes this one of the titles I like and love to play on the PlayStation.

RATING: 8.5/10: Amazing!