Everyone loves Pac-Man but the latest cartoon adventures and games have taken Pac and his friends into the next dimension with beautiful visuals and some decent storylines.
In fact, they are a world away from the original pellet eater and so we were pretty excited to get hands on with Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 at a recent preview event. But were we impressed with what we saw?
The first Ghostly Adventures game was fairly decent and the sequel seems to take what was good about it, tweak things a little and run with that. With an all new story-line, Pac-Man, Spiral, Cylindria and the gang must help defend PacWorld from the ghoulish army of Lord Betrayus.
The Ghostly Adventures 2 is set out like the very best of platformers. Whilst the route you take is fairly linear, there are a number of hidden areas available for you to find. These are well disguised and there will probably be little chance of you finding them all first time round. A concern with many games of this genre is that the jumping mechanic can sometimes let them down but from our play, we never once sighed in disbelief and noticed Pac had most definitely found his jumping mojo. And that’s a real big plus for the Ghostly Adventures 2 as there is a LOT of jumping taking place.
As with most Pac titles, the big emphasis is on eating pellets, avoiding ghosts, eating more pellets and avoiding more ghosts. It’s all quite simple really as the more you eat, the bigger your score at the end of the level will be, which in turn will provide you with a nicer medal.
You can of course eat the ghosts (it wouldn’t be Pac if you couldn’t), and your ‘Boo Attack’ does a decent job at scaring those that normally spend their life scaring others. The addition of numerous special powers give Pac the ability to destroy the ghoulish in more ways than one. During the preview, I only managed to get hands on with Ice-Pac and found the special abilities of being able to freeze water (enabling access to otherwise out of reach platforms) a great one.
The levels seem well thoughts out with a decent degree of exploration needed to find the hidden areas, but at the same time, if you fancy a quick run through in the quickest time possible, then the flow is near on perfect. Visually, it’s pretty much spot on for an older generation title and something the kids especially will flock to it with it’s bright 3D graphics, catchy tunes and a control scheme that works near on perfectly.
In fact, I’m kind of struggling to find anything I didn’t like about Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 in my brief time with the game. There was a little slowdown whenever there were lots of ghosts and ghouls on screen at any one time, but other than that, things were delightful and I sat with a big grin on my face for the entire time I got hands on.
The kids should love it and if you are rocking an Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U or 3DS then you really should be taking a look at what promises to be a decent fun game….no matter what age bracket you fall in.
Bandai Namco could well be on to a winner with the latest Pac-Man adventure title when it releases on October 3rd 2014
