A Night at the Arcade: Pac-Man CE

Well, it's Pac-Man. What can I say about Pac-Man? The first ever Pac-Man World Championship wrapped up yesterday in New York. Immediately after the event, Namco Bandai dropped a news bomb on the world and announced the release of Pac-Man Championship Edition on XBLA. The gaming news world was shaken to its very core! Women fainted on the streets and dogs began sleeping with cats! Once the dust of the apocalypse settled, we really were left with another iteration of our time-worn Pac-Man. And the trial version is your ANatA feature for this week!

Eat the jump for my impressions...

It's becoming more apparent each week that my goodwill towards retro arcade releases on Xbox Live rely heavily on my affection for the original versions of these games. Pac-Man CE, for all intents and purposes, is your classic Pac-Man with some shiny new effects and a handful of new game modes. How many ways can you play Pac-Man? In several ways, apparently. Alongside the standard mode, these are the: Challenge Modes, Patience and Reward Course and The Darkness Course. Finally there are 3 different Extra Modes consisting of 3 unique courses. These new modes mark the first time new mazes have been released in the game's 26 year history.

As far as retro titles are concerned, Microsoft could not have chosen a heavier hitter than Pac-Man. The game is undeniably fun and is a frantic test of your hand-eye coordination. Only the main Championship Mode is available in the trial. Your session is set on a timer before everything fades to black and you're booted back out to the main menu.

It's a fresh enough take on a classic game and it's fun. Whether the package is worth your 800 MS points is really going to depend how much mileage you can squeeze out of this repetitive dot gobbler. Such was the case with Mad Tracks last week, if the trial offered up a taste of what the other game modes were all about, maybe I would be more willing to open up my wallet.

As it stands, I don't like Mr. Pac-Man that much. I'd rather spend my points on another retrofitted retro classic, Prince of Persia Classic, arriving to XBLA next week!