Pac-Man Championship Edition DX Review

The sequel to the surprisingly strong Pac-Man Championship Edition flew under the radar and  is here. Does it once again reinvent the tried and true formula?

Just like Championship Edition, this is Pac-man on speed. Not your grand pappy's version from the 80's. As you gain more points the speed of the game increases. If you die, the speed decreases.  DX is the most customizable Pac-Man yet, which really isn't saying much. But the options are nice to have. In total there are 8 courses to choose from. You can also pick from 8 different visuals that gives you new eye candy. Each course has its own set of challenges and time trials. Score attack 5 minutes, score attack 10 minutes, ghost combo, and 10 time trials. If you like getting high scores and chasing leaderboard positions, there is a lot to go after.

The time trials are short and weak. For most of them you're basically given 1 minute to get a certain amount of apples. It seems tacked on and pointless to me. Score attack is the main mode which is timed and the point is to get the highest score possible.

You can also choose difficulty levels which ranges from Beginner, Normal, to Expert. It doesn't make the A.I. smarter, you just get less lives and bombs. The new bomb feature is probably the best feature of all. You can finally get those pesky ghosts off of you and send them back into their cage for a brief moment. The bomb will not kill them, but you will slow down a bit once you use one. The other little feature I noticed was a slow mo matrix type of effect that activates automatically when you are about to get caught. The camera zooms in slightly and time slows down so you get a chance to elude the ghosts like Barry Sanders.

Power pellets are everywhere! A lot of the time sleeping ghosts will have power pellets on them. So once you are powered up, you get the chance to stay powered up for quite some time. There is a meter indicating your power up status. Gobbling up 30 ghosts like Thanksgiving dinner is satisfying and very rewarding for points.

Achievements

12 achievements for 200 gamerscore. And it is extremely easy for those precious points. I completed it in under an hour. You only have to do time trials for one course, not all 8. If you completed all of the other Pac-Man games on Xbox Live arcade, you should not have any problems completing this one.

Conclusion

It is still the same Pac-man we all know and love. Just a hipper up to date version. If you are a Pac-man fan, purchasing this is a no brainer.  

Price: 800MSP ($10)

8.0