Pac-Man Championship Edition DX - Get the Ghost Munchies

I decided to take a break from God of War II and play something else. This will only be a small distraction and I'll get back to God of War II.

One of the greatest things to come out of this generation of consoles is the downloadable title. These titles are often smaller titles that otherwise would not have been worth the money to develop or they would have been buried on some compilation disc. Now you can spend $10 - $20 dollars and get a game download. Many of these are outstanding titles. Case in point: Pac-Man Championship Edition DX.

Now I've never played Pac-Man Championship Edition so I don't know what the difference is between it and the DX version, but the DX version is pure awesome! You know the basics of Pac-Man, Pac-Man wanders around a maze eating pellets. All the while Pac-Man is being chased by four ghosts. Occasionally Pac-Man eats a power pellet and he gains the ability to eat the ghosts. The Championship Edition cranks that up to 11.

Now Pac-Man wanders a maze with a set number of pellets on each side. Guarding the pellets are sleeping ghosts. When Pack-Man comes near the ghost wakes up and starts chasing Pac-Man. When all the pellets on one side are eaten a fruit appears near the center on the opposite side of the map. Eating the fruit will cause more pellets to appear on the side that was just cleared and more sleeping ghosts to appear as well. It might also change the configuration of the map.

In a fun twist power pellets are not always on screen so you have to keep clearing the sides of the maze until one finally shows up. By the time you can get a power pellet you should have a long line of ghosts behind Pac-Man. Eat the power pellet and BAM! It's gorging time! This is what makes Pac-Man Championship Edition DX so much fun. It's a puzzle game all the while being an arcade game. You have to determine when to eat a power pellet to receive the maximum amount of points. As you score points the game gets faster. The speeds it will reach are ridiculous. I don't know how many times I lost track of Pac-Man and I was freaking out because that long line of ghosts was probably going to eat him. And as the game gets faster rouge ghosts show up that don't follow the line. These rouge ghosts are your normal Pac-Man ghosts and they have all of their behaviors. But at a speed of 50 it's hard to tell what's exactly going on.

All I can really say is check it out, you won't be disapointed. It's a great game for a quick pick up when you only have a few minutes to spare. But it also can can suck you in for hours on end. It's pure gameplay so there's no story to get involved with. Your only goal is to keep that yellow hockey-puck alive while munching ghosts.

There are other gameplay modes to check out as well. Time trial is all about eating pellets and fruit, eating ghosts is a waste of time. But Ghost combo has you eating as many ghosts as possible and this one can get tricky, especially when a power pellet appears in front of a long line of ghosts. Should you go for the pellet or should you try to get a longer line behind you?

Just play the game. This is the true revival that old games need. Not a bizarre uprade to some 3D world. Mario rip-off. Try it, you'll like it.