Pac-Man World 3
This is how you celebrate a 25th Anniversary?
Published: November 21, 2005
As one of the first real recognizable video game characters and an iconic figurehead of the industry, Pac-Man has sucessfully weathered advancements in graphics and gameplay while staying adorably simplistic for years. 25 of 'em, in fact, and creator Toru Iwatani is probably celebrating that longevity with a couple of beers... and then probably started weeping into them at the way his beloved character is being treated.
Poor Pac-Man must be having something of a mascot identity crisis. His latest offering has him chomping Pac-Dots and Power Pellets, sure, but it also has him butt-slamming enemies like Mario, speed-dashing and bouncing on pads like Sonic and crackin' wise like... well, just about any other cookie-cutter hero to come out of platformers in the past decade or so.
It's not that Pac-Man World 3 is particularly bad, per se - in fact some of the things developer Blitz Games injected, like Pac-Man's dialogue and interaction with enemies-turned-friends in the game is admirably funny. It's just that the series didn't need to be updated into a free-roaming platformer, we have enough of those, and the good ones are done much better.
The fact that Namco handed the development reins off to Blitz Games should probably be the first warning sign. It feels a bit like Nintendo letting Traveller's Tales do a Mario game; they'll probably do a decent job, but it won't be a proper Mario game. Such is the work done here, and that Namco is seemingly all too keen on letting other developers play around with and dilute the timelessness of their prized mascot says something about where the company is headed.
If it sounds like I'm unusually bitchy, it's just because the name Pac-Man World got me all nostalgic for the original 20th Anniversary treatment on the PlayStation. That game managed to update things into 3D, but kept the 2D perspective save for a couple of isometric views while navigating full 3D mazes. Some stuff, like the dash and the butt bounce were included here, but with the perspective, it just seemed to fit better. Alas, 2D games - even 3D ones with a 2D view - just aren't done anymore these days.
This isn't the first time, Namco tried to fix something that wasn't broken; the last Pac-Man World game was more or less the same full 3D experience as this third effort, but there aren't even passing glances at the older 2D stuff in place this time around, and it's a shame - especially considering how tight and playable the first PMW was. Guess I can give up hope on getting another 2.5D Klonoa game in this generation, and forget about the next.
But enough bitching about could-have-beens. PMW3 does shake things up a bit by having Pac-Man team up with former enemies Blinky and Clyde, using their powers to aid him against the onslaught of Erwin, a scientist tapping into the Spectral Realm that the ghosts (including returning foe-turned-friend Orson) call home. Erwin, probably overcompensating for his decidedly unthreatening villain name, has capture Inky and Winky and is using their energy, as well as the other denizens of the Spectral Realm to power his robots in a clichéd attempt to take over the world.
Most of the game is packed with the same clichés that the series has been populated with; a handful of industrial or deserted or cave or spirit levels, tons of pac-dots and power pellets and a healthy amount of ghost chomping. There are still fruits to collect, and finding a Galaxian icon will allow you to pop into a maze for some bonus points.
Poor Pac-Man must be having something of a mascot identity crisis. His latest offering has him chomping Pac-Dots and Power Pellets, sure, but it also has him butt-slamming enemies like Mario, speed-dashing and bouncing on pads like Sonic and crackin' wise like... well, just about any other cookie-cutter hero to come out of platformers in the past decade or so.
It's not that Pac-Man World 3 is particularly bad, per se - in fact some of the things developer Blitz Games injected, like Pac-Man's dialogue and interaction with enemies-turned-friends in the game is admirably funny. It's just that the series didn't need to be updated into a free-roaming platformer, we have enough of those, and the good ones are done much better.
The fact that Namco handed the development reins off to Blitz Games should probably be the first warning sign. It feels a bit like Nintendo letting Traveller's Tales do a Mario game; they'll probably do a decent job, but it won't be a proper Mario game. Such is the work done here, and that Namco is seemingly all too keen on letting other developers play around with and dilute the timelessness of their prized mascot says something about where the company is headed.
If it sounds like I'm unusually bitchy, it's just because the name Pac-Man World got me all nostalgic for the original 20th Anniversary treatment on the PlayStation. That game managed to update things into 3D, but kept the 2D perspective save for a couple of isometric views while navigating full 3D mazes. Some stuff, like the dash and the butt bounce were included here, but with the perspective, it just seemed to fit better. Alas, 2D games - even 3D ones with a 2D view - just aren't done anymore these days.
This isn't the first time, Namco tried to fix something that wasn't broken; the last Pac-Man World game was more or less the same full 3D experience as this third effort, but there aren't even passing glances at the older 2D stuff in place this time around, and it's a shame - especially considering how tight and playable the first PMW was. Guess I can give up hope on getting another 2.5D Klonoa game in this generation, and forget about the next.
But enough bitching about could-have-beens. PMW3 does shake things up a bit by having Pac-Man team up with former enemies Blinky and Clyde, using their powers to aid him against the onslaught of Erwin, a scientist tapping into the Spectral Realm that the ghosts (including returning foe-turned-friend Orson) call home. Erwin, probably overcompensating for his decidedly unthreatening villain name, has capture Inky and Winky and is using their energy, as well as the other denizens of the Spectral Realm to power his robots in a clichéd attempt to take over the world.
Most of the game is packed with the same clichés that the series has been populated with; a handful of industrial or deserted or cave or spirit levels, tons of pac-dots and power pellets and a healthy amount of ghost chomping. There are still fruits to collect, and finding a Galaxian icon will allow you to pop into a maze for some bonus points.
