Namco celebrates 30 years of Pac-man with one of their best efforts yet
In case you've never played Pac-man before, you control this yellow circle (Pac-man) and your goal is to eat all of the pellets in the level while avoiding the 4 ghosts. If the ghosts touch you, you lose a life, unless of course you eat the power pellet, which can turn the tides and give you the ability to eat the ghosts instead, but only for a limited time. As for Championship Edition, the formula was slightly altered and the goal was to survive for 5 minutes (or whatever time is given) and eat as many pellets you could to build up your score. This was a refreshing update to the retro formula, but it was only going to get better in Pac-man Championship Edition DX.
This new addition plays close to the last game; within a certain time limit, you must eat the pellets given to you on one side of the board. When one side done, a fruit will appear on the opposite side which unlocks a new set of pellets to collect. Unlike the last game, the ghosts don't start off chasing you. Instead, there are multiple SLEEPING ghosts spread out across the board. Passing by the ghost(s) will awaken them and they will start chasing you. Eventually, you'll build up a long trail of ghosts chasing you down and as the level progresses, you'll get ghosts that wander the board like the old games (and passing them will cause them to follow you too). It doesn't worry you at first but as you add to your trail of ghosts, they become troublesome as they get in your way very often.
There are ways to deal with these ghosts though. For one thing, the power pellet, when eaten, will turn the tables as you can go back and munch on all of the ghosts on your tail, which is probably one of the most satisfying moments I've ever witnessed in a game. That, or you can use your bombs. When you are in trouble and about to run into a ghost, you can use a limited supply of bombs and blow them back to the center of the board. This is good to use to stop yourself from taking cheap deaths, like running yourself into a corner. Lastly, you are given 3 lives to start but you can build up more as you gain points (you can get more bombs this way too). Basically, it's the same Pac-man you're familiar with, but the new updates to the gameplay, graphics and overall formula are excellent additions that make the game that much more fun and addictive.
There are more game modes to choose from besides score attack (5 minutes and 10 minutes) of course. You are given a large number of levels that mainly differ in the stage layout and some of their own gimmicks like changing the level every time you grab a fruit or even making you play in the dark. Each stage has a list of game types like score attack, time trial (grab all of the fruit in a given time) or ghost combo (see how many ghosts you can eat under one power pellet). May not seem like much but there are usually several and progressively challenging versions as you move down the list (there are usually several different time trials). Each play similarly to score attack, but with slightly different goals to make them feel more unique.
To make things more interesting, this game allows you to customize your game's appearance at that start of each level. First, besides the difficulty, you can customize the game's appearance in countless ways. You can choose between the arcade's graphics, the Atari 2600, Pacmania, or the newer HD graphic styles. Not only that, you can mix them up; have the Arcade sprites in the Pacmania background, the Atari sprites in the HD background, the HD sprites in the Arcade background, and so on. Surprisingly, all styles fit well with each other so you never feel like the styles clash. Also, you can choose your own music to play for each level, though you only get 5 choices this time. It's fun to experiment with the graphic styles with each game and it makes that much more appealing to customize the looks to your liking.
With a fantastic balance between retro and modern gameplay, Pac-man Championship Edition DX not only pleases every fan new and old, but it is also quite possibly the best Pac-man game of all time. DX is a terrific game with its fast paced and satisfying gameplay, catchy music, customization and overall style that is sure to give you your money's worth of only $10 (or 800 microsoft points). All fans of Pac-man, whether new or old, are sure to enjoy Pac-man Championship Edition DX for the XBLA and PSN.