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Live Arcade. Ever since the 360's launch, it feels like Microsoft's been forever playing catch up to Geometry Wars on that side of things, doesn't it? There's been some
good bits and bobs released here and there - don't get me wrong - and I'm a particularly big fan of Mutant Storm and Bankshot Billiards...but nothing's ever quite matched up, really.
Prepare yourself for earth shattering news then, as I think we may have just about found Geometry Wars' successor at last. Or at the very least, its equal. It comes from the most unlikely of sources too.
A new Pacman game, you say? Isn't that shit, what, over 20 years old? Very much so. This new version isn't even radically different from the original game either, which makes its beautiful elegance even more perplexing. It's seen some modernizing in the graphics and sound - naturally - and one or two reworks to the gameplay...but you have to understand, such minor tweaks have been delivered with such pin-sharp precision here, as to transform an ancient relic into a modern work of...genuine brilliance. I'll be honest, I've never even been a big Pacman guy either. Shit's simplistic, hugely dated, and ugly as sin. Yet this remix floors me.
As a result, my 360's "red ring of death" this week - and subsequent porting off to Microsoft heaven for repair - has been particularly excruciating. Sort of like losing a nut.
Redux
What's changed in this new Championship Edition then? Well you still traverse a maze, avoid ghosts and chow down on yellow ecstasy pills aplenty, but the biggest difference now is that the levels never end. As Pacman gobbles and swallows (yet never spits), upping his score in the process, the maze'll alter around him in real-time. The layout is reworked, the pill locations move, and gradually the speed increases too. Not only does this open up the ability to combo the ghosts - the true secret to leaderboard busting high scores - it far more importantly keeps things fresh, exciting...and a little un-nerving.
 | | The look is unmistakably Pacman, but now boasts a gorgeously glowy new style, along with a killer soundtrack |
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There's also a time limit now too. Depending on the mode you pick (5 are included), you're limited to 5 or 10 minutes total, and have to nab as high a score as poss in that timeframe...then it's game over. No ifs or buts. Well, unless you die. I do wish there was a genuine endless mode available with that in mind - one that went on ad infinitum - but these changes alone have reinvented the experience wonderfully, and actually made it play a fair bit more like Geo Wars itself.
Such comparisons prove fruitful in other areas too. To be more specific, it has that unmistakable "just one more go" quality that Geo Wars always enjoyed. Within 24 hours of downloading the sucker, I'd snagged
all 200 Gamerscore points for example. To call it addictive's a bit of an under-statement you see.
The entire game's also been decked out in a similarly bright neon "light show" vibe, more akin to a Mizuguchi game, or a rave, than a coin-op from the 80s. Music in particular, enjoys such upgrades, with thumping techno beats that work themselves organically into the gameplay, building and building into all-encapsulating synthy jolts of crazy adrenaline during their final minutes. Exceptional stuff, really.
Game Oveurrrr
If I had complaints then, it'd be the lack of more than one song. For such a cosmic - and surprising - display of audio and video prowess...what gives?
 | Only one of five modes differs hugely to the rest, blanking out the entire screen and making you play in the dark (not pictured)
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Also - and this is hardly a fault of the game itself - the 360 controller seems far from at ease here unfortunately. Attempting to use the D-pad proves tiresome - far from tactile and responsive enough to match up to Pacman's crazy new speed and reflex requirements - yet sadly the analogue stick suffers its own share of issues as well. It'll even flat-out refuse to obey your commands on occasion, and has got me killed numerous times if I'm completely honest. To be fair however, it's also unintentionally saved my arse just as often.
The biggest limpener with Pac though is the price, as it currently sells for a humongously greedy 800 points. That's twice that of Geo Wars, and a wee bit steep for an (admittedly beautifully spruced up) game that's getting ready to enjoy its 30th birthday.
That last complaint is a real downer I must say, as even a compulsive shopping addict like me took some serious time and persuasion before ultimately coughing up the dough here, and I could just as easily have missed out on the sucker completely. To think of an alternate reality in which Dig never bathed in Pac's stark new neon beauty for hours on end every night...nor gobbled down yellow blobs so ferociously and elatedly makes me wanna swallow razor blades. Isn't 800 points worth the avoidance of such a fate? I guess. But it doesn't mean we have to be happy about it.
What could so easily have been a 9 then - the first to adorn these pages, may I remind you - instead drops to an admittedly still respectable...
