Game Info
Game Name: Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Developer(s): Monkey Bar Games
Publisher(s): Bandai Namco Entertainment
Platform(s): XBox 360/PS3/Wii U/3DS/PC
Genre(s): Platformer/Action/Adventure
Release Date(s): October 25, 2013
ESRB Rating: E10+
Get chomping!
Pacopolis is threatened once again by Betrayus and only Pac-Man and his friends can stop him. Adventuring into the unknown, Pac-Man must team with Sir C and race Betrayus to the artifacts that can transform the world. Betrayus intends to turn to population of Pacopolis into ghosts and only Pac can stop him!
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures (パックワールド or Pakkuwārudo translated as Pac-World) is based on the cartoon of the same name which began airing in 2013 on Disney XD. The platform adventure was released on multiple devices and received average reviews.
I wish this thing would just die…
I loved Pac-Man and even had a Pac-Man birthday as a kid. Despite the fact that it is a bit of a kid’s game, I was anxious to try Pac-Man the Ghostly Adventures. The game really is a game that will be better for kids…but also doesn’t live up to the systems for which it was released.
The story is really irrelevant. It quickly becomes a repetitive quest of Pac-Man entering a new world and simply getting to the end of it. The convoluted story about Betrayus and the dead just seems to prolong this average gameplay which is varied by giving Pac-Man different power pellets to chomp on to change his form…kind of like a Mario game. It was a occasionally overly challenging for a kids game and that could frustrate younger players.
Not frustrating whatsoever…
The controls in this sense aren’t too bad. It lends itself to a starter game in this sense. It is a very basic jumping game with a lot of guidance of what paths to follow. Though it is a 3D world there is little room for exploration, nor to you really want to explore since you simply want to get through the level. The camera sometimes is frustrating and the controls sometimes lead you perplexed, but for the most part it is rather straight forward.
The graphics are a big let-down. The game looks like a smoother version of a PS2 game. The worlds are vast and empty and the sound effects are sometimes annoying rather than fun. I wish that the game was more in tune with the next generation of gaming in that sense.
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures feels more like a chore for older players, but younger players might enjoy it in the simplicity of the game. The game also mixes in some mini-games (in the form of a Defender clone, Gradius clone, and a combo of Combat & Pac-Man), but by the time you have them unlocked there is little interest in playing them and playing classic Pac-Man would be more fun. The game did spawn a sequel. Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 was released in 2014.
