I was a moron. I admit it. I know better, and yet ... I guess I let my optimism take over. This is a fault of mine, but it is a fault I am happy to have.
So, anyway, I read a rumour that Bomberman was due to be released on Live Arcade as this weeks Wednesday game, and that it was going to cost 400 points! That is far too good to be true, and yet I let myself swallow it.
So, imagine my surprise when the game that was available for download was not Bomberman, but in fact was Pacman : Championship Edition, for 800 MS points. WTF? Now, Live Arcade already has Pacman, as well as Ms. Pacman, which cost 400 MS points each. So, why would anybody want to download this new one for the cost of 2 games they may well already have? Seems to me that MS needs some help wit their marketing, because this is a disaster.
Still, I have auto-downloads on, so I got the trial version anyway. Decided to take a look at it this morning, and .... OH. MY. GOD!
It really is fantastic. Awesome, in fact. So much better than I thought it was going to be.
What it is, is nothing less than a complete re-invention of Pacman. Instead of making you eat all the dots in a single maze, instead, the maze is designed to take advantage of widescreen, and has two distinct sides. Once you clear all the dots from one side, a fruit appears at the other side. Eating this fruit recharges the dots in the other side, and may even re-arrange the maze.
Another nice difference is that when you eat the power pill, the ghosts are noticeably slower than the player. Whilst some purists may complain that this makes the game too easy, for the majority of the world this is actually making the game playable. Pacman has always been great, but it has also always been quite difficult. And, I say this without fear of shame. I have never been any good at the game. I have always felt that the ghost advantage becomes far too pronounced, far too quickly. Many people would be put off by the extremely steep learning curve. (Something that wasn't a problem back in the days when arcades were still the newest and most exciting thing in the world!)
With the new format, though, the ghost advantage is muted. Now, a player has more places in which to hide. There are more corners to turn, and more ways to herd the ghosts to where you want them. By shifting the focus away from clearing the maze, and onto the eating of ghosts, the game becomes just so much more fun.
You can see screenshots, and a trailer, here. I would definitely recommend all 360 owners to check this one out.
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