Pac

Pac-Man World 2

Namco's classic mascot hero returns in shining good platformer form. Our full review.

March 07, 2002 - Journey with us, if you will, to the year 1980. It was a tumultuous time, but nerds everywhere found solace in an arcade videogame called Pac-Man. The title, developed by Japanese company Namco and released by Midway in the US, was simplistic in deign and premise, and absolutely addictive to play. A pie-pieced yellow main character maneuvered his way through 2D mazes gobbling up pellets. It was a formula too perfect not to work.

As with all successes, countless sequels surfaced, evolution reared its lovely face, and Pac-Man made cameos on consoles old and new.

Fade into present day. Namco US has developed the latest update to the boisterous franchise, Pac-Man World 2, for GameCube. It's a platformer, and one that would probably bring a smile to designer Shigeru Miyamoto's face. It follows all of the formulas right out of the How to Make a Fun Platformer textbook, and it succeeds. The ideas aren't fresh, but the control is tight, the worlds interesting, the level design interactive and challenging enough to keep us interested. But like so many platformers turn 3D, it also fails to address the problems of a rotating 3D camera system and, in the end, falls just a bit too short for our tastes.

It's not going to change the world or revolutionize the platformer genre, but Pac-Man World is a fun romp through the classic mascot's universe, now in 3D, all the same.

Features

Play as the classic mascot hero Pac-Man
Explore six worlds and over 20 levels
Play a variety of arcade games and traditional 3D Pac-Mazes
Sink through water stages in a new Pac-Sub
New play mechanics: run, flip, shimmy, flip-kick, bounce and more
Collect pellets, power-ups and earn points
Single-player adventure
Marginal visual enhancements for the GCN port

Gameplay
Pac-Man World 2 comes to GameCube as a "port" of the week old PS2 game. The title takes players to Pac-Village, the home of the Pac-People. A gang of pesky ghosts has stolen the village's lifeblood -- five golden fruit, and it's up to Pac-Man to retrieve them and restore order. While some maze-like areas are featured, the game breaks from its historical mold and delivers a fully polygonal 3D platformer experience complete with six different worlds, 15 mazes and 20 giant levels. Pac-Man can run, jump, bounce, flip-kick, climb, strafe and air-gobble his way through the lands. He can also use roller blades, ice skates and even ride in a Pac-submarine.

This is basic platformer stuff, ladies and gentlemen. But at least it's done, for the most part, correctly. Control is tight, well balanced and intuitively learned. The Pac is manipulated with the analog stick, A jumps, and B speed-dashes and flip-kicks in mid-air, and really these are all anybody will need to know to make it through the adventure. A lot of the moves are context sensitive. Jumping up to a ledge, for example, results in an automatic grab by Pac-Man, who will then dangle ready to strafe or pull himself up. It's also possible to jump onto spring targets, which propel the main character upward into the air -- but again, all players need do is tap the A button once more than usual to make this happen.

Sure, sure, there are levels that require Pac-Man to don a pair of skates, but though he glides down icy terrain the basic control rules remain the same. And given, there is a group of nasty areas in which players must guide Pac-Man through fog-filled underwater, but once more all players need to is steer the craft with the analog stick and press A to shoot missiles. It couldn't be simpler and indeed the setup remains satisfying regardless of complexity.

The levels themselves mingle well with the control setup. There are straightforward platform stages in which players must move Pac-Man over floating objects, across chasms, along tight pathways, over ledges, and dashing into or atop enemies. These areas, though admittedly formulaic, are particularly enjoyable; they will bring out the old-school play memories in all of us, if nothing else. Later levels in the game to follow this style, the Volcano areas being our favorite, are much more challenging and therein entertaining. They remind us more than a little of playing Super Ghouls and Ghosts on S-NES, where our character would die abruptly before the completion of a troublesome area and we would sigh momentarily and try again, but have fun doing it.

There is a downside -- as it seems there always is. The blasted camera system refuses to behave, sometimes hiding our view of the action behind walls, or shakily swinging around a corner, or blocking us on a ledge. This isn't exactly a common problem, but it happens nonetheless, and once or twice it has even interfered with our ability to successfully maneuver Pac-Man where the poor mascot needed to go. A quarter way through the game, for instance, our view was eclipsed by a tree trunk that we were trying to jump to, we were forced to take a leap of faith, and our faith as it turns out was misplaced -- Pac-Man fell to his untimely death below. When we continued, he wasn't happy with our decision, we're sure.

The ice skating areas are extremely satisfying. A nice sense of control and physics join together for a very polished experience. Pac-Man slides on ice, jumps off ramps, glides over gaps and players also have to use the analog stick in situations that call for the mascot to be tightly balanced on a narrow path of ice, lest he fall off into the cold water. On the other hand, the submarine levels are best described as a chore. They take place in an underwater fog in which mines pop out of nowhere and threaten to explode if they are not first shot down with missiles from the craft. This is easier written than done, we might add, as the over-the-top particle effects meant to relate the explosions of these mines also sometimes block our view of the oncoming action, thus preventing us from successfully moving the craft out of harm's way in time. In contrast to the appealing platformer areas, when our craft falls to the seemingly endless fields of fog-covered mines in these levels, we don't often feel like returning to the adventure.

But we press on to do battle with some of the bosses in the game -- always one of the ghosts riding atop a mech-ized version of his or herself. It's nasty business for Pac-Man, but fairly uneventful so far as boss fights go. These are always ended with a few well-placed jumps to the head of the ghouls, or a speed-dash into their mouth -- or something of this nature.

The entire package is a fun one, in the end. The biggest gripe, other than some camera issues, of course, is that the platformer comes to an abrupt finale too quickly for our liking -- roughly five hours into the whole affair. It can be extended for collection whores who feel the need to get every pellet, every power-up, and every other item of value in order to feel as if they've fully completed the adventure, but most -- like us, will be unwilling to suffer themselves through that. And for those rare few who do, the extension will still be minimal.

There is some replay value to be had in the local arcade though. Pac-Man can travel to this dreamy wonderland and play perfectly emulated versions of his ancestor's titles, from the original Pac-Man to Pac-Attack, Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Mania. Collecting valuables unlocks these various arcade games, but players won't really need much to gain access to them. The sweaty geeks who packed the dirty backrooms of small-town diners to get their paws on the original Pac-Man will be in a nostalgic state of euphoria at the sight of these commendable emulations, for sure, and that's undoubtedly a selling point.

Graphics
Pac-Man World 2 features several full-motion-video cut-scenes with detailed polygonal characters, crisp textures and fluid animation -- all of which probably could have been achieved in real-time on the GameCube hardware. The real game features dumbed-down versions of each -- a slightly less visually impressive main character, more "polygonal" looking 3D worlds, but at the end of the day it's still a colorful, commendably animated presentation that has a lot of atmosphere to it.

The environments Pac-Man explores are big and varied. Players will be able to see considerably into the distance, the texture work is bright and vibrant in style and moderately crisp. There are particles that float about the locales as if to emphasize a wind, and subtle as these additions are they do make quite a difference to the player. Pac-Man, meanwhile, moves with cartoon fluidity, jumping, hopping and happily running along with his mouth open and his tongue visible inside. When he's made to tiptoe, he closes his mouth in concentration and looks the part. Everything is pre-lit nicely, there are basic circular shadows, animated backgrounds such as lava that shifts and moves or water that streams with transparencies, and some minimal lighting effects to boot.

The visuals won't drop anybody to the floor in amazement, but it all looks well enough, and at some points the style is very moody and atmospheric. Given that the framerate is constantly 60, we can't really complain. Well, if it wasn't for the camera system anyway, which we've already spent too much time discussing above.

Sound
The audio portion of Pac-Man World 2 is very well done. The music is bright and cheery, but also nicely composed and of high quality. Some of the songs are downright catchy, we're just slightly embarrassed to admit. A mixture of old-school "wocka-wocka" gobble sounds as Pac-Man collects pellets mix flawlessly with more updated effects such as bounces, slides, spins, thumps, and the like. Again, a very atmospheric listening experience regardless of whether one's after the old-school nostalgia factor or listening for something more original and fresh.

I like Pac-Man World 2. It's a fun, if formulaic 3D platformer. It follows all the rules right down to what kinds of levels are available. But it executes on the control and design elements of the experience much better than other, more recent platformers have. Of course I know there's not a whole lot of originality packed into this title, but what's there is still for the most part very entertaining. It's even fairly pretty. The game's biggest problem is that it has also introduced a camera system that is relatively unchanged from countless 3D platformers before it, which leads to some disorienting views at points. The only other gripe I've got is that the experience ends a bit too abruptly for my own tastes. Five hours or so and it's all over. To its credit, though, there are some collectibles to be had and the arcade emulations extend replay value.

Recommended for most platformer fans. Others may want to rent it first before they commit to a purchase. It's not going to revolutionize the platformer genre, but it's still entertaining and fun while it lasts.