Reviewed: May 16, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Namco
Developer
Namco
Released: April 26, 2005
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone
10
8
8
7
8.7
Supported Features:
I have to confess that ever since the PSP arrived my Nintendo DS has been gathering quite a bit of dust. Not only are there far fewer games available for the DS (PSP had the DS beat 2:1 at launch), but most of the DS titles are simply generic ports of GBA games that don’t even make use of the DS features, and what few titles that have captured my interested have quickly fallen by the wayside.
Imagine my surprise when Pac-Pix arrived for review. Not only had this Namco title totally slipped under our radar, it turned out to be one of the best DS titles currently available for the system, trailing only slightly behind Mario, Wario, and ZooKeeper for sheer addictive gameplay and fabulous use of the DS stylus.
Everyone here has at least heard of Pac-Man and 99.9% of you have likely played a variation or two of the famous gobbler, but Namco has turned the franchise upside down with some of the most innovative gameplay you’re likely to see on any system.
Pac-Pix puts you in the artist’s chair and lets you create the main character or any of several tools that might aid Pac-Man in achieving his objectives. Your goal is the same as always – eat those pesky ghosts, only the playing field has changed.
Have you seen those late-night TV commercials for the Art Institute where they want you to draw the frog or the bear and send it in to see if you are worthy of becoming an artist? Pac-Pix is like that only on a much more basic level. Here, you are only required to draw a few core objects to play the entire game, but there are a few rules.
Each object must be drawn in a prescribed way before it will animate and come to life as a playing piece on the board. For instance, Pac-Man must be drawn starting with the wedge-shaped mouth followed by the arc of his body. The direction of his mouth indicates the direction he will move when animated. Size also plays a critical roll. A small Pac-Man will move quite rapidly while a larger one will move slower but can eat more in its larger mouth.
Once Pac-Man is moving around you can control him by drawing lines or walls. The direction you draw the line is the direction Pac-Man will turn when he bumps into that wall. Other objects like brick walls or shielded ghosts can cause Pac-Man to reverse direction. If Pac-Man goes off the sides or bottom of the screen you lose a man and have to draw a new one.
In some levels you can send Pac-Man into the upper screen where a traditional maze exists. It’s not much of a maze really, more of a rectangular path that will usually allow you to nab a ghost, a fruit pick-up or perhaps an extra life. More importantly, it gives you a few precious seconds where you don’t have to worry about controlling Pac-Man in the lower screen and you can plan a strategy or even draw another Pac-Man.
Each level gives you a preset number of Pac-Men you can draw for that level. There’s no limit to the number you can have at any one time, and I’ve managed to keep up to four guys going for a lengthy bit of time. You can clear a level quicker with more Pac-Men, but you have to weigh that with the bonus points awared for unused lives.
Later in the game other items are introduced. You will soon need to draw an arrow, starting with the head and followed by the shaft. The direction of the shaft determines the firing direction and you will need to shoot targets, ghosts in bubbles, and even bounce shots off of angled mirrors.
Then you get to draw bombs, basically a circle with a fuse coming out of it, but you have to connect the fuse to a candle somewhere on the screen. Not as easy as it sounds with ghosts moving around that will disrupt your fuse. Also, some candles are unlit and you must light them by shooting an arrow at a target in the top screen.
Not tough enough. How about switches and locks to open the gate into the upper maze or remove a piece of wall so you can actually fire into the upper area. Then you have numbered targets that must be eaten in their numeric order and if you get just one out of synch you start it all over. Then you have shielded ghosts that can only be eaten from behind.
Of course your ultimate goal is to eat the set number of ghosts before you run out of lives or time. The game is presented in a storybook fashion with multiple chapters and numerous levels within those chapters, often ending in a boss battle. Boss battles are very creative but not always easy to figure out. It might take you several attempts to figure out just how to win these rounds.
Obviously, a game like this requires some advanced object recognition and Pac-Pix performs admirably. There were a few times when I would hastily draw a Pac-Man and he would take off in the wrong direction because my mouth was so deformed, and I would have the hardest time drawing arrows and getting them to fly until I realized I was drawing the head incorrectly. Sometimes it pays to draw slowly and carefully rather than rush and have to do it over.
My only minor complaint is that when you run out of lives you must restart the entire chapter. This can be devastating if you are almost to the end of the chapter and lose all your lives. It’s also a pain if you have to stop in the middle of a game.
Visually, the game looks like an art project your kid might bring home from pre-school and you’d tack up on the fridge. Everything is simple and comical and delightfully animated. There are a lot of subtle touches like when your Pac-Man springs to life and all of the nearby ghosts rear their “heads” in alarm.
Plus, there is something very immersive about actually drawing the lead character or playing pieces and have them come to life in a video game and interact with the computer-controller pieces.
There is a charming soundtrack with plenty of upbeat tunes that reprise the original Pac-Man music. There is nothing here as annoying as the wacka…wacka…wacka of the original.
Sound effects are authentic right down the eating of the ghosts and there are several new effects tossed in like the exploding bombs or shooting arrows.
Expect a good 10-12 hours to complete the book the first time. Pac-Pix ranks you based on your score including bonus points for lives unused and remaining time. The better you do and the quicker you do it the higher your rank. High ranks earn you collectors’ cards that you can view in the gallery. Admittedly, it offers nothing to the replay value, but it’s a goal for those who desire to unlock every last secret.
There is also a sketchbook that allows you to doodle and possibly find a few other designs that might spring to life. Use your imagination here and see what secret shapes the designers might have anticipated you drawing. Of course the ultimate reason to keep playing is to best your high scores, just like the original Pac-Man.
Pac-Pix is a shining gem of what the Nintendo DS can and should be offering. Enough of these GBA spillover titles. Give me original ideas that use the stylus if you want me to keep my DS battery charged.
The best thing about Pac-Pix is its easy-to-grasp concepts of shapes and drawing. Any child capable of drawing a circle, triangle, and line can play this game, although it may take a teenager or adult with lightning reflexes and a keen analytical mind to get through the last three chapters.
If you own a DS and need a reason to blow the dust off your stylus then Pac-Pix is the game you’ve been waiting for. This is a breath of fresh air that will hopefully inspire others to start creating some original works for this struggling system.
