İncelemeler

• gamedeal user

  Sep 13, 2016

  I already have PAC-MAN CE DX installed so I was very excited with this new release. Some early comments reported 5 minutes waiting for the tutorial screen and terrible loading times, but if you have a little more than the minimum specs you should not have any troubles with the game. If you have similar hardware like mine: [i]Intel Core i5 3570k, 16Gb RAM, AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB[/i] you will be good ... the more important thing is to have at least a [b]graphic card with 2GB memory[/b] (Update: someone with nVidia GTX 750 1GB memory mention that he had no problems playing this game) About the game, all the graphics are really polished, the tutorial is very easy to follow and the new game rules add more fun to this game, I especially enjoyed the bomb, the new angry ghost feature, ghost trains and the possibility to watch the replay for the first 50 in the leaderboards in any mode so you can learn how they obtain their high scores and improve your techniques. My Xbox 360 wireless controller works good just make sure to connect the wireless receiver before opening the game. If you have any troubles, check if both (receiver and controller) are in sync and if you have the right drivers installed) [h1]Pros:[/h1] [list] [*] It's Pac-Man!! Fun since 1980! [*] Gorgeous graphics [*] Excellent gameplay [*] Absolutely fun [*] Freaking insane and amazing OST **thanks nahcirujano** [*] New rules and new game modes [*] Very good tutorial (1 and 2) [*] Possibility to watch the replay for any player with score in the top 50 at the leaderboards [*] Fair price [*] No Micropayments <<<< [*] No Season Pass <<<< [*] No Pay 2 Win <<<< [/list] [h1]Cons:[/h1] [list] [*] Lack of video options (no basic nor advanced) [*] Lack of controller options [*] Very high hardware requirements (versus previous version) [/list] Have fun chomping those pellets and ghosts! :D
• gamedeal user

  Sep 14, 2016

  These are crude early impressions from someone who is in the top 100 on the leaderboards (or at least, top 300 if we include hackers) for both Pac Man DX and Champ 2: - The game starts with an unnecessary six minute tutorial. After this, you unlock Score attack, where you unlock more levels as you play. There's a lot of unlocking in this game, but I think anyone with moderate stint of skill should be able to unlock mostly everything in no time. - Championship 2 has the same fundamentals as the other games (eat dots, ghost trains, power pellets) but its otherwise entirely different. Eating dots fills up a gauge that, when filled will allow you to eat a fruit at the center of the screen to refresh the board. This means you don't have to eat every single dot to to get the fruit like in DX. Ghosts no longer immediately kill you on impact. Instead you bump off them a few times before they turn hostile and chase you. Bombs can now be obtained by eating all of the dots and return you to the center of the screen instead of the ghosts when you use them. Another small addition to some boards are jump pads that dart you across the screen. I have to say, I think these will always throw me out of whack, but in a good way. These changes may seem confusing at first, but they make for a less linear and more hectic game than DX. DX, as genius as it was, was arguably linear with its boards and forced you to eat every dot in a predetermined path to progress. By introducing the guage, the game presents the player with the option of moving to the next screen early or getting the remaining dots and ghosts available. Another aspect that ups the ante significantly is giving all four ghosts their own train as they wander around the board. The more mini ghosts you collect, the longer their trains get and the harder they are to avoid. This is on top of how incredibly fast these games get as you gain speed. There are still some changes I'm kind of iffy on, like when you finally have to chase and eat the ghost trains. On one hand I can understand how these moments are meant to fit the manic feel of the game, but they can get a little frustrating from just how sporadic and random the ghosts movements are. These moments only get worse for more complex parts of the map where the ghosts twist and turn all over the place. Then there's the actual process of eating them, which zooms in on you as pac man automatically chomps away. While it does look cool, you can't control Pac man during these sequences and he'll often turn in directions you didn't intend. There is also the chance of you getting stuck in one of these trains on accident. It just seems that this stage of the game feels poorly realized in a few ways. - Score attack mode has three difficulties: Single Train, Regular and Extreme. Single train has the slowest speed and only has one train of ghosts follow you, while Regular splits it into four ghost trains and speeds things up a bit. Extreme mode is for those of us who take our scores seriously. You only get three lives (not that it will matter, since you'll probably restart when you die) and ghosts turn hostile if you tap them once. - There is something called adventure mode that has bosses or something, but honestly my only interest in these games comes down to their score attacks. - The LSD infused visuals and music that drew so many people to these games in the first place is still absolutely fantastic. - The system requirements stike me as really strange (an i7 for fucking pac man?), and it doesn't help to see people reporting issues with this game. I own a GTX 750 ti with a i5 4590, and I have not encountered a single problem. My opinions may change the further I dig into the game, but they are largely positive. Pac Man DX was arcade perfection and Champ 2 introduced a few new good ideas to shake it up, even if some don't work out as well. As far as I'm concerned, this is a worthy successor to Pac Man DX, although not as perfectly executed. EDIT: Bandai Namco messed up sensitivity for ALL game controllers quite a while ago and refused to address it. I still recommend the game, as long as you follow my guide on how to fix them. Otherwise, I'd stay away. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=887120149
• gamedeal user

  Sep 14, 2016

  So, reviews have been shot out early this morning with not recommended to recommended scores. I'll give my review of the game right here. Pacman CE 2 is a sequel to the 2 almost perfect games: Pacman Championship Edition and Pacman Championship Edition Deluxe. Does this game hold up just as well? Let's see Let's Talk about the gameplay, if you're familiar with Pacman CE or just Pacman in general, you should feel right at home with this game, it's very fast paced, and still pretty difficult to achieve very high scores. Eating Ghosts feels even more satisfying than ever in this game. All you have to do to complete an area of the maze is simply much all the power pellets until the fruit bar below is full, then you collect the fruit, BOOM, on to the next area. If you look at this game and think it's super hard, don't worry, there's a tutorial that will teach you all of the basics and tricks you need to know. I also feel the need to say, if you lose a life, it only takes about two seconds to get back in the game, nice way to keep that system going. Fighting bosses, which is a new mechanic in the game, is simpler than you think, collect the pellets, then catch the fuit that's fleeing, be careful though, once you collect all of the pellets, all of the ghosts will become angry, so be careful. This game also just feels so satisfying to play! Especially when you eat up a Ghost Train. The Music, as you'd expect, is really good, though I personally have an issue that no one else seems to have, the music cuts off when the timer hits 15 seconds in 5 minute Score Attack mode, my game must not be running correctly, can someone figure out why? Anyway, the music adds to the expierience a LOT. I keep beating my head to the tunes of the tracks, heck, even the HUD's beat along to the rhythm!!! Nice touch! Now lets talk about the Graphics and Presentation. This game doesn't look as simple as 2D sprites anymore, no, we've launched into 3D sprites! They all look very retro and still feel very Pacman-like. The atmoshpere feels very intense because of the mini ghosts moving around and how fast paced the gameplay is, the game also runs at a stunning 60fps. However, this game is just a little difficult to run on PC, so I'd check the specification requirements before purchasing the game on your PC. A lot of people seem to be giving this game bad reviews for the game not loading, or the framerate is too low, that's a problem THEY are having, if you have the right specifications for this game, you're good to go! Also, guys, don't give the game a bad review for problems you're having, first, check to see if several other people are having the same issue before calling that an instant Con, ok? Just wanted to get that out of the way. Overall, I really think Pacman Championship Edition 2 is a great game that any Pacman fan, or just any video game fan in general should buy! I recommend this game to all audiences that like fast paced, intense, and thrilling games! Pacman Championship Edition 2 is between a GREAT and AMAZING game! Score: 9/10 Thanks for reading my review! I really hope this helped. $12.99 is definetely worth the price you're paying for this game.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 15, 2016

  I am so happy with how this game turned out. My biggest fear after the announcement of this game was that it would basically be a map pack for CE DX. However instead we got a game with a very different scoring system and play style while still being as engaging and fun as the original. It seems that every new mechanic has been designed to make the game much more aggresive. You can now bump into ghosts a few times before they get angry and become lethal. This allows you to forcefully push yourself where you need to go with the added risk of more deadly ghosts. Making ghosts angry will also cause them to jump into the air which allows you to manipulate their position to your advantage. Further in order to destroy a chain of ghosts you need to collide with the front making the ability to manipulate and chase down ghosts key to succces. This mechanic takes a while to get used to however is very satisfying when you come up with setups to preform quick kills. The cost of these aggressive changes means that the game is less threatening, however I don't feel that this is a bad thing. Scoring optimization plays a much bigger role here as a result and the game includes a 1 life extreme difficulty if you want a more threatening experience. Pac Man Championship Edition 2 has not succeeded the previous games, rather it created something new which shares similar themes but a different and equal gameplay experience. I highly recommend checking the game out.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 17, 2016

  To start off the review, I'm going to say that if you haven't played the original Pac-Man Championship Edition DX +, you should not even consider this game until you've bought and played that game. It is a modern classic, and I find it hard to imagine anybody would enjoy this game more than the original. If you don't like the original, it’s unlikely you'll enjoy this game. Unfortunately, even if you love the first in the series, there's a chance this game will disappoint you. The basic premise of the game is similar to the original 80's Pac-Man: Eat everything you can while avoiding ghosts (until you gain the ability to eat them too). Championship Edition DX adds a fast-paced, electro-music, puzzle-game type of twist to the old formula. This game comes with 2 basic modes: Score Attack and Adventure Mode. There's also a Tutorial Mode to introduce basic game concepts. [b]Score Attack[/b] has 10 different maps to choose from, mostly inspired by the previous game's boards, but also includes some new ones. As the name implies, the goal is to get the highest score possible by eating dots, fruits, power pellets, and ghosts within a 5 minute limit. Each map has 3 different difficulty levels to choose from, and your results are graded and tracked on a leaderboard so you can compare your score against others. Each map also has a 10-minute time limit version of the map, but this version is only for 'practice', and does not have a leaderboard associated with it. You end up with 30 trials to attempt to get 'S' rank on and rise to the top of each one's leaderboard. [b]Adventure Mode[/b] replaces the Time Trial mode of the previous game. This mode asks you to collect a certain amount fruit as quickly as possible. A countdown timer begins at the start of the level, and if it counts down to 0 before you've completed the objective then you fail and must restart. It features an 'overworld map' type of structure, where there are 10 or more sub-levels that must be completed before unlocking a boss-level. After the boss level is completed, the map moves on to the next section of 10+ levels (I use the word 'map' loosely, there is no story or additional graphics, it’s just a set of 10 squares labeled 1-1 through 1-10 to choose from, and a box labeled 'BOSS'). Each level also has 3 difficulty levels to choose from, which changes how much time is on the countdown timer at the start of each level. There are no leaderboards associated with this mode, and based on the game's Achievements there seems to be at least half a dozen sets of levels. The problems come with how the actual gameplay differs from the original. The original game was simple enough to easily pick-up, and seemed to give you every advantage to avoid dying. This game seems to have added several unintuitive features that only serve to frustrate and block progress. Below are some examples:[list] [*]One of the best parts of the original game is that time would drastically slow down any time you were in danger of losing a life. This gave the player the option to almost always save themselves, even if they made a wrong turn or a ghost surprised them while travelling at top speed. In this game there is never any intentional slowdown. Instead, ghosts begin as harmless, and you will literally bounce off of them if you run into them. However, if you bounce into them enough times, they become 'angry', at which point touching them again results in death. So instead of a rewarding system that allows you to recover from mistakes, the game changed to make mistakes either meaningless or harshly punished. [*]In the original game, bombs would send all active ghosts back to their central cell, guaranteeing your safety and allowing you to continue on your route. Thus, bombs were a limited item that could be used to continue progress no matter the situation. In this game, using a bomb teleports you back to your starting point in the map, next to a 'safe zone' where ghosts cannot harm you, stopping your progress and making it feel more like a retreat than an attack on the ghosts. Granted, there is some strategy to using this new bomb functionality, as it can allow you to clear levels faster by teleporting to the middle of the map from any location, but it still feels like a removal of one of the key powers of the game. [*]The way power pellets work has been completely revamped. Now, once Pac-Man eats a Power Pellet, the ghost trains move very quickly at try to avoid Pac-Man by running through pre-defined paths on the map. After catching up with the head a ghost train, Pac-Man jumps above the map and enters an eating animation while the rest of the board continues to move at normal speed. On harder difficulties, where there can be 4 separate ghost trains, each of which needs to be consumed to continue on, this can lead to a significant amount of time being spent catching the ghost trains, watching the animation for eating it, figuring out where the other ghosts have moved while the animation played, and then repeating 3 more times. It turns what should be the most enjoyable part of Pac-Man (eating ghosts) into a frustrating experience. [*]The addition of difficulty levels falls into the problem where the higher difficulty levels aren't necessarily harder, but just more annoying. At the hardest difficulty, the end-of-level fruits and power pellets will actively run away from Pac-Man, forcing you to chase after them while avoiding ghosts. The easiest difficulty only allows for 1 ghost train at a time (similar to the original), while harder ones enable up to 4 (which clutters up the map with ghost trains and makes eating every ghost a hassle as mentioned above). [*]The Adventure Mode is a complete misfire. Rather than giving the player infinite time and challenging them to continue to improve on their fastest time, the imposition of arbitrary time limits as a fail condition is much worse. But even that's really beside the point, as without leaderboards attached to the mode there is little reason to slog through 60+ of these levels rather than simply getting better at the Score Attack modes. [*]There are other examples (the speed multiplier from the original is gone, the addition of a 'brake' button implies the developers intend for Pac-Man to stop moving during the game as a strategy, 1-Ups have become a pickup item that appears randomly during levels, etc.), but in general almost every new or changed feature makes the game inferior to the original.[/list] I'm a huge fan of the original Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (I have well over a hundred hours in it, getting into the top percentage of the leaderboards), and I keep wondering if my love of the original game is why I'm disappointed with this sequel ("could anything measure up?"). I appreciate that the developers had to make changes to the base gameplay in order to justify a sequel, but nearly every change they've made shows a misunderstanding of what made the original game so much fun. It's like a video game form of a bad movie remake: it doesn't do anything new that's worth doing, it doesn't seem to understand the appeal of its source material, and it likely wouldn't exist if the original hadn't been hugely successful and garnered such goodwill. Because of all this, I just can't recommend this game, even to diehard fans of the original.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 18, 2016

  Well, I'm doing another review/explanation already. This being another "first impressions" sort... normally I dont like doing that sort, but every now and then I come across a game that I gain an immediate understanding of, having played similar games, and also just being able to see the sheer potential behind the game's mechanics even early on. This is one of those games. First off, if you havent played the previous two games, let me just start off by saying this: This isnt going to play like the old Pac-Man games. Yes, there are still dots to eat, fruits and pellets to grab, and ghosts to avoid/chase. But the similarities end there. ....yet without the game losing that special "feel" of Pac-man in general. The first thing you'll notice is that the game starts you off with a multi-section tutorial. That's right. A tutorial for freaking Pac-Man. And you'll need it, to make sure you understand ALL of the game's mechanics fully. There is... quite alot of stuff going on here, and plenty of concepts that sure as heck didnt exist way back when. Trains? Bombs? And Pac-Man having brakes, like a car? What? But these loopy things make the game what it is. Firstly, the trains. Like in Pac-Man games of old, your classic Ghost buddies are here to zoom around like a bunch of deranged rainbow bees, making your life difficult. Unlike in old games though, they have a new trick. There are little green ghosts that appear around the mazes; these guys do not move at all, until you get close, at which point they'll wake up and leap towards one of the main ghosts. When they hit that ghost, they'll become a little mini clone of them, and just sort of hang around, lining up, eventually creating a very long "Ghost Train". This will happen with all four Ghosts at once. You'll have four Ghosts that are more than what they always used to be, now taking up a ton of space at once, being more like giant snakes than the usual Ghosts. The good thing is, Ghosts dont kill you on contact anymore. Instead, depending on what difficulty mode you're playing on, when you hit a Ghost, you'll sorta bounce off of them. Hit them a couple of times in succession, and the Ghost will sort of leap into the air, switch to a larger, angrier form, and then dive back into the maze with increased speed (and his damn train). When in this state, THEN they can kill you. However, you need this to happen sometimes. Bouncing off of ghosts slows you down, which in a scoring-focused game with a timer, is never good. Depending on what's going on and where you are in the maze, it's sometimes a very good idea to bounce off of them quickly, causing them to leap up.... which also gets them out of your way. Knowing when to let this happen and when to avoid it is important. Ghost trains do one other thing though, which is affect power-pellet scoring. Power pellets dont appear in the corner of the mazes anymore, and they dont appear in every maze, either. I suppose I should explain the mazes here, actually, before the pellets. Each maze is it's own self-contained thing as you'd expect. In each one, there are alot of dots to gobble, typically lined up in such a way that they show an "optimal" path through the stage. As a rule, you want to try to follow that path, to get all the dots efficiently. As you gobble them, this meter at the bottom of the screen fills up. When it maxes out, a fruit target appears in the center, under the Ghost Box, and grabbing that fruit ends that maze and zooms you and the Ghosts to the next (with the Ghosts keeping their trains). Missing dots in a maze lowers the per-dot score counter by quite a bit, so you really want to avoid that. After a few mazes, instead of a fruit target you'll get a Power Pellet. Grab this, and, well... you know what happens. But, this time with trains! Ghosts tend to have a very high speed in this mode, and, what's worse, the trains cant be gobbled directly; you'll just repeatedly bounce off of them like you're hitting a wall. To eat them, you have to specifically hit the lead ghosts, at which point you'll get the entire train. Ghosts have rules about where they can move during this mode, which the game will explain to you, and understanding the maze, the "line", and the rules behind the Ghost movements here is the key to catching them quickly. Do so, and you'll get a big ton of points, depending on how long the trains are. Trains really are worth HUGE amounts of points, but this game divides everything up quite nicely as scoring goes. Every element of the scoring system is important, and understanding it is important too. It's balanced well. In addition to all of that stuff, Pac-man has 3 things he can do: Firstly, yes, brakes. You can hit X to come to a complete stop, which is something he was incapable of in the original games without hitting a wall. This can be important to keep from hitting an angry Ghost as it zooms by, or something like that. Secondly, you can "wall grind", where you sort of press against a wall, grinding sparks along it, causing Pac-man to turn much faster when you reach the intersection... this can be important both for increasing speed around the maze, and also for dodging stuff. Lastly, you have Bombs. That's right, bombs, as in shmup bombs. In that genre, they effectively "reset" the screen by clearing it of bullets. In this, they do a similar thing, getting you out of tight spots by launching you back to the starting position instantly. These have multiple uses, which you'll figure out as you go, but suffice it to say, they are important. And you'll have to keep all of this stuff in mind as you go, which is difficult, as the game gets chaotic fast. The "linear" nature of the dot trail makes it sound like the game is going to be purely about memorization and such, and that it'll be easy to just repeat the motions. In the previous game, this was somewhat true. But this time? Nooooooope. Things are bloody chaotic as hell, and the Ghosts WILL find ways to screw you up, knocking or forcing you off of the path, at which point you'll have to improvise, and that's when things get really interesting. This will happen very frequently, because the game is lightning-fast, and it's easy to make mistakes, and hard to track the Ghosts' movements. And with the trains and the green ghosts (who you CAN run into and bounce off of, they take a moment before they leap to join trains, so they can screw you up too), and the bouncing mechanic confusing you and all sorts of stuff and the maze always changing.... honestly, the only other genre I find so chaotic is the bullet-hell genre. Which I suppose this is like, except the bullets line up in those deranged conga lines and chase you around. It's a purely skill-based game, and one that is entirely designed for replaying and practicing on. This is NOT a game to buy if you dont like playing games for score, because that's literally the entire point of the game, just like how it was with the old arcade games. The best players will spend a huge number of hours playing something like this. There are many different mazes to pick from, and various difficulty modes too. There's "single train" mode, where there's only one Ghost (Blinky) running around, making for a somewhat easier/casual way to play (and learn the mazes). There's "regular", which involves all four Ghosts/trains running around, and which also speeds things up and is very chaotic. And then there's "extreme" which is like pushing a button that says "I LOVE DYING, KILL ME PLEASE!" ...I'm out of space here. Suffice it to say though, I think this is a fantastic game, but it really is mostly just for those that love playing arcade-style games for score. If you like that idea though, as I do... this is the game for you. You'll get a TON of value out of this one.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 25, 2016

  There's only one question that matters: how does it compare to Championship Edition DX? This is the only question that matters because this should not be anyone's entry or re-entry into the series. If someone out there hasn't played Pac-Man since its days in the arcade, Champion Edition DX is in order, not this game. So, how does it compare for those of us who are continuing on from DX? Poorly. It alarmed me when I started the game and tried to go to Time Attack, only to find it locked. It said I had to complete the Tutorial first. A tutorial? In Pac-Man? "Move the circle guy and eat the dots. Have fun." is all the tutorial such a game needs. Why on Earth did it become unacceptable to let the player muddle through a few times while they figure out the mechanices, especially in arcade-style games, where a bad run will cause a player to lose no overall progress and only a few minutes of their time? But not only is there a tutorial--it's a FORCED tutorial. Designed for stupid people, too, with easily decipherable pictograms there to show the player what it means when it says "Ghosts." Can I ask--why are we acting like these sleeping ghosts that only become active when you move by them, and then begin following the ghost train, are a new mechanic? That's not new. That was in DX. Once more, the sleeping minions are not a new addition to the series. There isn't a lot to be said in favor of CE2. It overcomplicates where it isn't necessary, changing things simply for the sake of changing them. Bombs now return the player to the spawn point. Why? So that using a bomb becomes a penalty? Not only do you now lose a bomb, you also lose your momentum. In fact, it's probably better to die in these cases, since the difference in points is only 9000--in a game where scores are in the millions--and at least then you will pick back up right where you were when things go south. If you use a bomb, you'll keep your life, but you'll have to travel all the way back to where you were. You probably lose just as much time using the bomb as you would if you simply died and respawned. Ghost trains are an irritating mechanic, because each ghost is part of a train. There will be several times where you'll be munching down on one chain only to have another chain overlap--do you get a double bonus, and continue on devouring the second chain? Nope. It just goes right by you. The slowly evolving levels of DX were much better than this one. In DX, each board was split into halves, and each half could be changed by getting one of the two pieces of fruit. Doing this changed the layout of the map and refreshed the dots, and you had to react to the changes on the fly. Not so here! Grabbing the fruit interrupts the gameplay as Pac-Man leaps down to the next board. So instead of having the stage slowly evolve as you gather fruit, you just leap from one board to the next and are slapped back in its center every time. My biggest complaint, though, is that CE2 just isn't as clever. DX was almost perfectly designed. If you played without mistakes, you would see that you were just a pixel ahead of a ghost; if you played perfectly, you could see how smart the design was. Skidding around corners, saving fractions of a second in random places, and doing it perfectly yielded almost frame perfect success. It was great. Here, that's not present. Even if you play a portion perfectly, you'll end up smacking straight into a ghost--who only kill you if they "become angry" by having you bump into them a few times. There have been a few times where I noticed that I encountered problems precisely because I didn't make a mistake, as though the bar had been lowered and the maps designed for people who didn't pre-turn or whatever it's called in Pac-Man. "Babies' Edition" would be more appropriate, given the pictograms, the constant slowing and stopping of the gameplay to let the player catch up, the interruptions to the maps so that the player can breathe. I'm currently reinstalling DX. If you want Pac-Man, then Championship Edition DX is the game for you. This one is alright, but it's not more than that.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 31, 2016

  As a video game, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is a fun, bright and colourful romp through some nostalgic Pac-Man levels with some updated twists and original mechanics. As a sequel, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is a complete disaster that is upstaged at every opportunity by the very game it's trying to succeed. It is, at its core, a perfectly acceptable game that has the misfortune of following up one of the most pleasant surprises to bear the name 'Pac-Man', and it doesn't impress nearly as much this time around. If I had to pick its single greatest flaw, it would be that PMCE2 is 100% the type of game where the developers wanted to add in some bold new changes to really set this game apart from the original, but forgot to check if the changes they were making were actually any good. They weren't. Bombs are back! But rather than blasting ghosts back into the middle of the maze for a second - which was incredibly useful but not overpowered in the original - they just shoot you back to the middle of the maze instead, which is dull, not very useful, not very interesting, and heaven forbid you're already near the middle of the screen when you need to use one. You bump into ghosts instead of avoiding them! And they bump you back a few spaces, which is super-fun and not annoying when the ghosts are in chains of 30 or more and you're travelling fast enough to screen-wrap in less then a second. And it barely comes up because bumping into them 3 times - which you will probably do, partly because you're moving so fast and partly because it's wildly impractical to improvise a different route when you can get through by bumping them into a hostile jump - sets the ghosts back on their old regular 'Hunt you down and kill you' mode. Ghost chains are still here! But you can only eat them head-on and they move (at ridiculous speeds) around the maze at random, following predestined white lines with the intention of forcing you to cut them off. Interesting idea, boring and sometimes obnoxiously difficult in practise. And then there's just strange new design choices like 'The fruit sometimes runs away from you.' Isn't that fun? Don't you love it when you need to get an item in a video game and it runs away from you? I hate it when I want to pick up an item in a video game and it doesn't run away from me. So boring. Much more fun to chase it for another 12 seconds while, like the ghosts, it seeks out paths to avoid you and you have to come up with a plan to hunt it down and cut it off despite moving at speeds far too ludicrous to keep track of. It's not all bad - the Adventure mode is pretty good, although it has that false difficulty of 'Hey man, it's cool, just unlock whatever stars you want and face the boss when you're ready!' that becomes 'I was just joking! You have to 100% everything perfectly on the hardest difficulty if you want to play the final level!' at the end. And the final 'Adventure Mode' levels change your tasks from 'Eat 6 fruit in 60 seconds' to 'Reach 5 million points in 6 minutes'. At least the boss fights are something new and cool? The 3D graphics when you finish them off, or eat a long ghost train, are really well-done, but they're also why this game - that has less content than the original - is more than four times the size. If this was a good game but a bad sequel, that would balance out, but as it stands now, it's a decent game and a terrible sequel. Just keep playing Pac-Man Championship Edition DX.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 5, 2017

  As someone who has put tons of time into Pac-Man Championship Edition and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ on both XBOX 360 and PC, I was totally excited for this. Sadly, I was promptly thrown in to a world of disappointment and regret once I started playing. I gave this game a good honest try, I did. I thought, "Maybe it will just take some getting used to," but alas, it was not to be. Instead of expanding on the great formulat that they had in the first two Championship Editions, they decided to throw that out the window including many of the basics of Pac-Man itself. First of all, ghosts (for the most part) don't hurt any more. Pac-Man just bounces off them, which seems stupid (and it is) until you realize that it's neccessary as you can't always tell you're going to run into a ghost because of the games flighty controls. The controls in this game (which were flawless in the previous two) are beyond sensative. All too often will Pac-Man go up when I try to go down, or crash into a barage of ghosts because Pac-Man will suddenly turn left when I was trying to continue straight. Combine this with the warp speeds Pac-Man seems to acheive in no time at all, and sometimes you'll completely lose track of him, only to find Pac-Man in a section of the maze you had no intention of travelling to. This is to say nothing of the jump pads which springboard you over a wall into another section of the map. Those can be disorienting enough without a warp speed Pac-Man bouncing off a ghost onto one of thse pads. I wanted to like this game, I really did, but it's just not fun. Honestly, I could've probably dealt with the ghost bouncing if the controls weren't absolute garbage. There's plenty to be annoyed about in this game, but if the controls were great like the previous ones, then there is a chance I would've really enjoyed this one too.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 19, 2017

  I really enjoy Pac-Man Championship Edition 2. The new additions to the Pac-Man gameplay strike the right balance between preserving what it means to be a Pac-Man game, and offering the players something new and exciting. The graphics and sound are perfect. That said, I can see why others down this game for its controls. There's no denying, as far as I can tell, that the controls in CE2 are worse than CEDX. The reason this is the case is that in Pac-Man CEDX, you could reliably buffer a turn in advance, pressing the direction you'd like to move while still within a straightaway, and you'd turn that direction at the next opportunity. In Pac-Man CE2, the window to make movement decisions seems to be more like the original Pac-Man games of the 80s, and your window is pretty much a split second in advance of the turn. I miss the turn-buffering, for lack of a better term, as it allowed me to better plan ahead. I could be on a straightaway, having buffered my next turn, and be looking ahead on Pac-Man's route to plan my next and better keep on top of the ghost situation. In CE2, because I'm forced to keep my eye on Pac-Man at all times, keeping a plan for everything else is daunting to say the least, because the controls are so much less reliable. Unlike CEDX, I, like other reviewers, have even lost track of where Pac-Man himself is, and I can't recall that ever happening in any other game with his name on it. I think allowing movement buffering would go a long way to making Pac-Man CE2 pretty much perfect, along with CEDX which already is. All that said, I'd recommend CE2 to anyone who likes Pac-Man.