The Pac Is Back (Pacman World 2 (PS2))

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	Pacman World 2 (PS2)
Date:	14/11/06 (164 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bonus games, good fun, lots of levels

Disadvantages: Lots of silly levels - limited appeal

Having grown rather tired of the range of games on the Game Cube I eventually defected to the other side and acquired a PS2. I’ve always liked platform and puzzle games, but Mario really did my head in with Super Mario Sunshine on the Game Cube so I decided I needed to try something else. I’ve never played the first Pac-Man World game (I haven’t even seen it in the shops) but the blurb on the back of the box of this one really appealed to me – and so did the price. A brand new copy of this game cost me a mere £24.99 in Gamestation.

THE BASIC PREMISE

Deep in the heart of Pac-Land lies a small village, occupied by the Pac-People. In the middle of the village grows a tree with five golden fruit, and all the time that the fruit remain on the tree then Pac-Land remains peaceful. One night, some mischievous ghosts sneak into the village, and pick the golden fruit, blissfully unaware that in doing so they will release the evil Spooky from his prison. Spooky immediately commands the ghosts to hide the golden fruit throughout the land, thus rendering the Pac-Village helpless to resist Spooky. Only one person can save the day and that’s Pac-Man (or you, as the player). Your job is to navigate through Pac-Land, defeat each of the naughty spooks and return the five golden fruit to their rightful home.

GAMEPLAY – THE BASICS

With the basic story in mind, you’ll probably get the idea of what it is that you have to do. The game consists of a number of different areas, which you must explore, gathering fruit, life force and tokens along the way and eating as many of the Pac-Dots that you can find. Your life force is comprised of three or four segments of a yellow sphere, and can be topped up by eating the Pac-Dots or one of the life force segments dotted around. Hidden within each level are a fixed number of fruits, dots and tokens and as you complete each level you accumulate a score. Additionally, there is also a hidden maze on most levels, which leads you into a 3-D version of the original arcade game.

Along the way, there are various obstacles and monsters, which either need to be avoided or destroyed. Each part of Pac-Land has its own environmental hazards and creatures, and according to where you are, your method of movement will change (e.g. walk, swim, skate). The levels are all quite different. Some of them can be wandered around at a sedate pace, whereas others will be very quick because you are running away from an avalanche or skating down a hill. In principal, it’s all quite good fun, and probably has something for everyone. Personally, I quite like quick rounds where I a chasing something or running away from something, whereas I know that other people prefer to wander round and explore at their own pace. The only problem is that the quality – and enjoyment level – of each section can vary wildly. Some of the levels are superb, whereas others are dreadful and the game is not particularly consistent. Along the way there are also boss fights (in this case, with each of the spooks) and some of these are very similar.

NAVIGATING PAC-LAND

The game is well laid out and played very logically. The very first point of call is the Pac-Village, where there are only a few items to collect and to point out where you come back at intervals throughout the game. The next location acts as a bit of a training ground, and provides vocal tutorials on all the objects and moves that you need to acquire. From there you progress through blocks of three levels, each of which has a similar them and are then followed by a boss game before you move to the next block. There is a section set in a woodland (my favourite), a section set in a snowy mountain, a section set underwater (my least favourite), a section set in a volcano and so on. In total, there are eighteen levels, plus the six boss rounds, so you can see that the scope of the game is quite wide.

Along the way, your progress is followed via a colourful map that displays each completed level, as well as the score and tally of objects completed in each. Once a level has been completed, it can be repeated at any time, simply to collect more object, or as a timed round for fun. Playing the timed rounds has never appealed to me, but it’s always good to go back and spend some time collecting missing objects once you have completed a round for the first time. Many of the levels are quite complicated and feature lots of secret hidden areas that it takes you quite a while to discover.

PAC-MAN AND HIS MOVES

Apart from wandering around as normal, Pac-Man has a few special moves up his sleeves. His two main moves are “Rev Rolling” and “Butt Bouncing”. With a Rev Roll, he charges on the spot and then hurtles forward rapidly like a ball from a cannon. With a Butt bounce, he bounces repeatedly on the spot, enabling him to squash nasty creatures or propel himself high into the air. These moves initially take some getting used to. With the Rev Roll, he has a tendency to hurtle out of control if not stopped quickly, but with a bit of practice things are quite easy. There are lots of other moves too, although I have to say that underwater he is a complete nightmare. He never rests in the water, and often goes past objects, without enabling you to go back. He also has a tendency to float into the arms of waiting monsters and is likely to drive you completely insane. Otherwise, he’s quite a flexible little chap and easy to move around. My favourite bits are in the forest, when he obtains a steel suit that makes him invulnerable and he looks cool.

THE BAD GUYS

Dotted around Pac-Land you come across about twenty different baddies. As well as the obvious ghosts, there are all sorts of bugs and creatures, some of which are fairly easy to deal with and some of which are a real nuisance. In the snowy mountains, for instance, you come across extremely irritating rams that Rev Roll towards you at high speed. You tend to hear them before you see them and they have this irritating habit of knocking you off cliffs. The sharks are very funny – they have huge over-sized heads and teeth – but they’re also rather ruthless. The baddies do liven things and make the game colourful and entertaining.

The bosses, on the other hand, are quite a different matter. For most of the boss levels, you are pitched against one of the spooks in a bizarre mechanical creature that has to be avoided and gradually beaten using a combination of Pac-Man’s moves. The levels get progressively harder and no more interesting. As such, they do become rather tiresome after a while and with each I was almost on the verge of abandoning the game completely. There is an underwater fight with a submarine that is a bit different – but the secret with that is simply to shoot at anything that moves. None of it relies on skill – it’s all just a matter of luck.

VISUALS AND SOUNDS

None of the graphics are particularly accomplished from a technical perspective but they ARE very effective. All the different locations are bright, vivid and appealing and keep you entertained throughout. Some sections are very good. There are branches in the trees that have built in butane lamps, and when lit they really look like natural gas. Some of the sections are not so good, but you do become immersed in the game play, rather than picking out the technical inadequacies.

The music employed throughout Pac-Man World 2 is typical of the genre, in that it is quite child-like and very repetitive. Having played the game for an hour or two one night I completely ruined a night’s sleep through my inability to shake the bloody theme tune out of my head. There are lots of good sound effects though – Pac-Man’s Butt Bounce sounds quite funny. Nothing here is particularly sophisticated but it will have very wide appeal across all age groups and I suppose that was the intention.

THE ARCADE GAMES

Another excellent feature of this game is that it also includes the various editions of Pac Man that have been released before. As you proceed through the game you collect tokens and when you have accumulated a certain amount you unlock access to some of the other Pac games located in the village. The games that are included are Pac Man (from 1980), Ms Pac-Man (from 1981), Pac-Mania (from 1988) and Pac-Attack (from 1993.) These make a superb addition to the game and mean that in essence you have five games for the price of one. I’m a bit of a retro addict where console games are concerned and I still love to play the original Pac-Man (even though it seems so primitive now.) I can also remember having Pac-Attack on my SNES, so it was nice to be able to play that again too (it’s like a Pac version of Tetris.)

GAMEPLAY – LIKES AND DISLIKES

I like the variety and imagination that has been employed with this game. The levels are generally quite long, and you could potentially play this for hours at a time. Throughout the levels are little checkpoints, to which you return if you subsequently get killed. These are an essential part of any platform game, otherwise you have to go right back to the start every time you die. I particularly like the volcanic and forested levels, which provide the most entertaining sections, although the level involving an avalanche is also great fun. I like the way in which many of the objects and tokens are hidden so that you have to keep going back into the different levels to try and find them all, and navigating your way around is dead easy. The addition of the different arcade games also means that if you feel like playing something simple, then you have a good choice of things to do. As you progress through the game, my advice would be to accumulate as many lives as possible. I reached 250 lives at one point, and used over 150 of them trying to complete three sub-sections of one level!

On the downside, some of the levels are dreadful and no fun to play whatsoever. There is a ridiculous underwater Pac-Marine level, which is horrendously long and completed only by literally firing missiles at anything in sight. In all of the ocean levels, controlling the character is very difficult, and so out of step with the other levels, because once you have gone past something, you can’t retrace your steps. There are also moments in the game where everything freezes to point out a location that you must visit next. This is all very well and good the first time you do it, but if you then subsequently die and have to do it all over again, the frozen section really seems to slow you down. Also, there is a menu screen displayed before each level showing its name, and these are often suspended for about ten seconds whilst the level loads. This is extremely frustrating when you just want to get on with things.

OVERALL VERDICT

Given the price and variety of activities available, it would be hard not to recommend this game. Some sections of the game are highly addictive, but the others do rather let it down, and I think that the boss levels are boring and repetitive. Although the different levels potentially cater for different tastes, you probably won’t like them all and this means that game isn’t very fluid. It is generally very good fun, however, and occupies your time amply.

Generally recommended

Summary: Not exactly genre-defining but still lots of fun