Coming October 12th for the Sony Playstation:
Reverend Shoebox's Review of the Holy Two-Level Demo
9/12/99
BACKGROUND
Most game reviewers pride themselves on impartiality. Even if a
bootlicking game company were to make a game STARRING a certain
game reviewer as a badass gun-slinging woman-getting ruler of all
mankind, the Game Reviewer Code would still require the reviewer in
question to point out that the control is lousy, the graphics are
mediocre, and pressing any button on the controller causes the game
to reset.
But I am not a game reviewer, and thus I am not bound by this code.
This is fortunate, because when I first opened the FedEx envelope
Namco had sent me and extracted from it the Pac-Man World Demo CD,
I practically wet myself with childlike glee. I have included these
two paragraphs simply to serve as a warning: I am, for those of you
who somehow haven't grasped this yet, a Pac-Man fan. Expecting me
to be completely impartial in this review would be like expecting a
cat to ignore a decaying chipmunk head lying on the floor.
Pac-Man World (earlier titles: "Pac-Man:
Ghost Zone" and "Pac-Man 3D") is Pac-Man's first 3D platform game,
and also the first Playstation game ever made by Namco in the U.S.
(the rest were developed in Japan.) The Enlightened Order of Monks
of the Great Yellow One (or "The Pac-Man World Development Team," as
many call them,) are pictured below.
The Enlightened Order of Monks of the Great Yellow One in
their ceremonial golden shirts
This game has been in development for the last few years, and many
video game industry people had given up on it. There were constant
rumors that Namco had stopped development on the game or sold the
rights to it to another company. But Namco is finally releasing the
game, and it looks like it's definitely worth the wait.
Pac-Man comes home to find...?
THE PLOT
The introduction to this game is one of the coolest things
I have seen in my adult life. It features appearances by Ms. Pac-Man,
Jr. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, Professor Pac-Man (!!!), and a Pac-Dog
I'm not familiar with, all of whom are planning a 20th Anniversary
party for Pac-Man when they are suddenly kidnapped by the
presumably sinister Toc-Man. Even Pooka (from Dig Dug) makes an
appearance, and when he is ultimately hit on the head with an anchor,
you are treated to the little ditty that is played whenever you lose
a life in Dig Dug (I jumped out of my seat with bliss and made strange
happy noises when I heard this.) A bit later, Pac-Man comes home,
sees the ruins of what was supposed to be his surprise party, and
screams with righteous yellow rage (it's the only time you'll
see this...Pac-Man maintains a bright and cheery smile for the rest of
the game.)
The graphics in this 3-D sequence are top-notch...the characters and
background are beautifully rendered, and the animation is flawless.
Pac-Man's house (as seen in "Pac-Man 2") is shaped like Pac-Man, which
has inspired me to build a house shaped like myself one of these
days should my ego ever reach critical mass. The sound effects are
full of familiar-sounding noises from the Pac-Man games,
and some which I believe are from the old Hanna-Barbara cartoon.
All in all, I found the intro to be my favorite thing about the
game. This is a serious compliment, since the game itself is great.
Whee!!
CONTROL, ENVIRONMENT, ANIMATIONS, SOUND, ETC.
Our spherical yellow hero has never been as diverse, control-wise,
as he is in this game. Control is very smooth and easy to master.
Even the swimming scenes, which in many newer platform games can be a bit confusing,
are very smooth in this game. Pac-Man World has a fairly set path. You can explore in
various directions, but it's always clear which way your goal lies.
The only part I had a hard time with was that his jumps have a span
which is quite a bit smaller than
that of most 3-D game heroes.
In addition to running, jumping, and
swimming, Pac-Man has several methods of attack. First of all, you can throw
dots, which I don't completely understand, because as we all know,
Pac-Man -EATS- dots, and I'd think that he'd have to cough them up
to attack with them. The dots don't go far, but they're a very
destructive close-range weapon...especially if you hold the button for a "Super Dot
Explosion." Pac-Man's second attack method is a "Butt Bounce," which
is performed by pressing the jump button while Pac-Man is in the
middle of a jump. Pac-Man will then bounce off of an enemy, or the
ground, and end up high in the air. This can be done several times
consecutively. Butt-bouncing on "B-Doings" (my favorite name EVER
for those spring-loaded things that catapult your character into the
air) makes you jump even higher. Butt-bouncing is also good for
getting to high platforms or activating switches. The look on
Pac-Man's face when he's in the air is one of sheer rapture, and
must be seen to be believed (see image above.)
Thirdly, the hungry one can do a spin attack, which is
nearly identical to Sonic the Hedgehog's spin attack. This can also
be used to get up steep slopes and control "helivators" (controllable
hovering platforms.) The only thing that makes this attack interesting
is that if you have a Dual Shock or similar vibrating controller,
doing a spin attack sets it off. This surprised the hell out of my
wife, who had never used a dual shock before (Incidently,
butt-bouncing also causes a brief jolt of vibration when you hit
the ground.) Lastly, and most importantly, Pac-Man can eat a
power pellet, which renders ghosts blue and edible. This has always
been Pac-Man's preferred method of attack, and I can't even
begin to express how worried I was that you wouldn't be able to do
this in Pac-Man World. The only annoying thing about this is that ghosts seem to be the only
enemies you can eat. I attempted to eat a pirate skeleton once, and
the results weren't particularly pleasing.
Little "animations" make the newly-rendered Pac-Man come to
life (he scampers to crawl up walls if he's hanging over the
edge, he throws out his arms to balance himself if he's on a moving
platform, etc.) Granted, all of these things have been done before,
but not with Pac-Man (except, to some degree, in Pac-Man 2.) If you leave Pac-Man alone for a few seconds, he'll go into his little
"bored" routine...he'll yawn, he'll scratch his head, he'll look
around, and occasionally he'll juggle a few dots, throw them
up into the air, and catch them in his mouth. This is just plain
impressive.
The soundtrack to Pac-Man World is also interesting...a lot of
the background music is based on themes from old Pac-Man games.
You'll find a remixed Ms. Pac-Man theme, a variation on the
"intermission" theme, and many more. In addition, there are also a
lot of sound effects sampled from the original, which fit perfectly.
Namco obviously put some thought into this, and it'll make a lot
of classic gamers very happy.
Walking on water is unnecessary for the wondrous round one
DEMO LEVEL ONE - BUCCANEER BEACH
The first level in the Pac-Man World demo begins with...a maze full
of dots, ghosts, and energizers. Granted, the maze is small, 3-D, and made
of crates, but it was nice to see something familiar. After you
move beyond this (which doesn't take long,) you are in what is pretty
much a trainer level. There are some easy obstacles to get through
with "hint" signs which explain to you how everything works, and
suggesting certain actions (spin attacks, butt-bouncing, etc.,) to
proceed. All in all, it's a good trainer level, but it's not much
else. From my understanding, the full version has a lot more.
The colors!! THE COLORS!!
DEMO LEVEL TWO - CLOWNING AROUND
Now we're getting somewhere. In this level, the graphics truly shine.
Nifty effects, detailed backgrounds, and some very unique and imaginative
obstacles await Pac-Man in his journey through what appears to be a
giant fun house. Some obstacles of note are the giant spinning
platforms (on which there are often buttons Pac-Man must butt-bounce
on without falling to his demise,) bumper cars which attempt to slam
you off the edge of the world, giant rotating hexagonal tunnels
with holes Pac-Man must avoid, and, my personal favorite, shooting
galleries in which an unseen gunman fires at pop-up targets, and
Pac-Man has to keep his rendered yellow ass out of the line of fire.
There's even a warp zone to a "maze" level, which will be discussed
below. This level is utterly fantastic, and hopefully indicative of
what the rest of the game will be like.
A somewhat familiar environment for our now-rendered yellow redeemer
MAZES
Want original Pac-Man gameplay in a 3-D environment? Here ya go!
In these, Pac-Man is deprived of all his newfound abilities and is
returned to basics. He is stuck in a maze (made of crates, boxes,
etc.,) he can move in 4 directions, he can eat dots, and, with the help of
four power pellets, he can eat the four ghosts which live in
the "ghost pen," consistently come back to life, and generally make
Pac-Man miserable. Pac-Man purists may very well hate this. The
ghosts' patterns certainly aren't true to the original, hitting
ghosts merely decreases your "life meter" rather than immediately melting you
into a thick yellow puddle, random fruit bounces around, and the ghosts look funny. But anybody
who takes Pac-Man THAT seriously really needs to spend some time
reaquainting him or herself with the sun. The only part that
bothered me was the scrolling screen...it made it very easy to
run into a ghost you didn't know was there. But all in all,
the mazes are nifty.
There are two mazes in this demo. One can be accessed
from the main menu, and has a similar setup to the single level of
the original Pac-Man game. The other can be found by opening the
"Galaxian" door in the "Clowning Around" level. This one's pretty
much the same idea with a different layout. The full version also
comes with the original Pac-Man game...hopefully it's emulated.
Pac-Man spreads his arms wide to embrace all that follow his
golden light
CONCLUSION
I had one serious concern going into this game, namely that there
was no possible way that it could be anywhere near as groundbreaking
as the legendary original Pac-Man game. The original Pac-Man broke away from the
aliens and constantly-firing spaceships that dominated the early
video game scene, and instead featured a friendly-looking character
whose only weapon was his hunger. Pac-Man captured the hearts of
millions who had never played a video game before,
spawned more merchandise than Kiss, inspired a catchy fluff tune
by the otherwise-unknown 80's duo "Buckner & Garcia," and is
rumored to have been singlehandedly responsible for a coin
shortage in Japan. I mentioned this concern to a couple of Namco's
Pac-Man World programmers, who responded with a cry of
"Ouch." I realized that I had to accept that Pac-Man World could never do this.
But I like it, dammit!! I really like it!! On a scale of 1 to 10, I
give it an A+!! Sure it's a 3-D platform game, but it's an original one,
and it's very playable and a lot of fun. The other reviews I've seen
have had mixed reactions...some hated it, others loved it. The most
notable review in my mind was in PS Extreme. They recently ran a
rather large feature on this glorious game (with the great hungry one
on the cover and drool-inducing allusions to other upcoming "retro"
remakes as well) and honored it with a 98% rating.
I have to agree. Congratulations to the Namco Hometek Pac-Man
team...you've added a worthy new testament to the book of Pac,
and made a believer out of a very disturbed man. THE PROPHESIZED
UMPTEENTH COMING OF PAC-MAN IS UPON US!! REJOICE, BRETHREN!!
-=Reverend Shoebox=-
Back to the 1st Church of Pac-Man