For several reasons, the announcement of Pac-Man Championship Edition met groans from the 360 community. First, the Microsoft hype machine went into overdrive hinting that there would be a giant gaming announcement that would drastically change gamers' lives. Second, and more importantly, the announcement of a new Pac-Man game leaves most with the undeniable feeling that they have already paid for this, twice, with Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. Most probably questioned whether Namco could really pull off making one of the most famous franchises in the history of video games feel fresh again. Trust us, they have.
Everyone's favorite yellow dot-gobbling circle and the ghosts all look about the same here. The walls that make up the levels receive a slight upgrade, with a hazy neon look. Designed for the 360, the levels fit the screen much better, and reach further top to bottom and left to right; but the game mostly looks just about the same as the original. Suffice to say, you will not be playing this one for its looks. Despite its lack of graphical polish, you will still want to go back to it repeatedly, thanks to updated gameplay that turns the vintage game on its ear.
Gamers will notice the major changes immediately. First, there is a timer at the top of the screen. Each of the modes, there are six in total, offers gamers the challenge of staying alive for a set amount of time; either five or ten minutes. While this may seem odd for a game where there level resets after all the dots disappear, that is precisely the point; the level never really 'ends' or resets. This leads to the second, and most impressive, change for the game.
Gamers will notice, at first, that there are relatively few dots on the screen. This makes it look like a rather easy game, until gamers realize that clearing all the dots on one side of the screen invokes a fruit-drop on the other side. Picking up the fruit both reveals new dots on the opposite side of the screen and completely refreshes that side of the maze; changing the structure of it completely. Clear the dots again, and the next fruit-drop happens. The level never 'ends', but rather evolves continually as you play. The ever-changing mazes and steadily increasing speed of the ghosts makes for an adrenaline filled gaming experience. When is the last time you felt genuinely excited playing a Pac-Man game?
The game corrects most of the issues with the original retro offering on Live Arcade. While most of the achievements were reachable on the original by just sitting down and continuing your game repeatedly, thanks to the game's redesign there is no restarting from where you died. You will actually have to earn your achievements, a novel concept for a Namco Arcade title. This also marks one of the few Arcade games that you will continue playing long after you receive all 200 Achievement Points. The game is addictive in the same way original Arcade stunner Geometry Wars is.
Also corrected are the game's clunky controls, as the 360 controller actually holds up well when playing the game with much more responsive controls. You will still turn the wrong way every once in a great while, but it is far less frequently this time around. Due to the high-speed action of the levels, this would have been an infuriatingly frustrating game with the same controls. The game features the same basic sound effects, but gives gamers a thumping techno soundtrack to play along to; even getting more tense and frantic as the mode's timer counts ever closer to zero.
