Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (Xbox One) Review

At its core, this is still a Pac-Man game, which involves the titular round protagonist eating pellets around a maze, while trying to avoid those pesky ghosts. The only difference is that now, there are multiple mazes that are randomly generated upon the completion of the first one, and as such the race for the pellets just keeps on going. In addition to munching away through a sequence of mazes, there are also sleeping ghosts who will awaken when passed by, and they will attach themselves to the back of one of the ghosts, thus creating a train. Then, when the special pellet appears on the screen and is eaten, Pac-Man will then have a small moment to eat the ghosts with their train. The longer the train of ghosts, the more points are awarded to the total score.

In addition to the special pellet, fruits also appear and they are tasked with teleporting Pac-Man to the next maze, where he begins the race against the ghosts yet again. All the stages have a countdown timer as Pac-Man tries to create the best score possible, and complete as many mazes as possible, while eating the longest ghost trains as possible. On top of all of that, for the first time in a Pac-Man game, bumping into the ghosts will not take a life away from him. Not at first anyway. See, the ghosts can be bumped into for a total of three consecutive times before the ghosts enter an 'Angry' state, which is when they are their most dangerous, and can successfully take a life from Pac-Man. Bumping into the ghosts can be a useful strategy for getting past them during their transition stage into an 'Angry' state, and is an especially fun process during the mad craze of pellet-munching.

Jump pads are introduced as a game mechanic, which allows Pac-Man to jump over walls and obstacles, and while they start off easy at first in terms of learning where Pac-Man will land, they get a little more complex as the game progresses, and the jump pads stop lining up properly. Trying to guess where Pac-Man is going to land is a nuisance, which causes many frustrating moments of trying to collect bearings before getting gobbled by a ghost. Pac-Man has the bomb jump at his disposal also, which when used, will launch Pac-Man back to his starting position in the maze. This is useful for many reasons, as it can be used to escape the clutches of the ghosts if Pac-Man finds himself in a tight situation, or when a fruit or special pellet appears at the beginning, Pac-Man can quickly transport there to beat that always-ticking clock.

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 offers two main modes in addition to the tutorial stages. Rather than teach how to play the game, the tutorial throws Pac-Man into a series of scenarios and offers different objectives for him to accomplish, which is basically how the rest of the game works also. Score Attack throws up a series of timed mazes, with Pac-Man trying to get as high a score as possible in five minutes. Different mazes have different mechanical differences, with jump pads and the like appearing in some of them.

The other main mode is Adventure mode, which like the tutorial, is a series of mazes that each have a set list of objectives that must be completed in order to pass through to the next stage. The objectives range from collecting five pieces of fruit, to eating two special pellets and so on. While the objectives are not creative, and rarely differ after fifteen stages, effectively Pac-Man is doing the same thing in every level. When he is eating pellets, an on-screen meter fills up, and once full, the special pellet or fruit appears at the starting point to be eaten. Sometimes those special foods have a conscious of their own, and try to flee Pac-Man as he must chase them down to eat them.

The end of each world features a Boss battle, though it is still a series of mazes, except with the Boss floating behind the grid. Slaying the boss is as simple as eating all the fruits to progress through the different mazes, and then on the final maze, eating that power pellet kicks off a cut-scene where Pac-Man devours the boss to fireworks and cheering. While the boss battles could've had a little bit more interaction with the maze itself, it didn't take away from the satisfaction of finally eating him.