Pac-man, a series that has been around for years, has finally made it onto the DS! The newest installment to the Pac-man series, Pac-Pix introduces a new element into the series, The Magic Pen. The Magic pen (aka your stylus) plays an important role in the game for Pac-Man to protect the world from ghosts!
The plot starts off introducing Ghost Ink. Ghost Ink is an ink created by an evil wizard that will turn anything that is drawn into a ghost! The ghosts began infesting books all over the world, creating havoc to everyone. Pac-man knew this problem needed to be solved, so he took his Magic Pen, and began to stop these evil ghosts from causing so much trouble. With his Magic Pen, Pac-man drew Pac-men, and gobbled up all of the ghosts. Finally when Pac-man captured all of the remaining ghosts into one last book, the ghosts used all of their energy to create Pac-man into a piece of paper!
Pac-man awakes to find himself a flattened version of himself on a piece of paper. The ghosts have prevented him to use the Magic pen any longer, and now there is no way to stop them! Pac-man realizes that you are still around to use the Magic Pen, and chomp up all of the ghosts. Pac-man teaches you how to use the magic pen and draw your own Pac-men to eat up the ghosts.
When Pac-man teaches you how to use the Magic Pen, it goes into a tutorial where Pac-man tells you the shapes to draw, and how to maneuver your own drawing of Pac-man. The Pac-man you draw can be any size. The bigger you draw them, the slower they are, and vice versa. As well as that, 4 Pac-men can be on the screen at one time. To maneuver the Pac-men, the gamer must draw a line in front of the Pac-men in the direction they want it to go. As well as that, you can pin down your Pac-man, and pull him back a little bit to prevent him from going off the edge of the book.
When you first enter the Pac-Pix realm, you are given a limited amount of Pac-men to draw per level, a time limit, and a number of ghosts that needed to be eaten to move on. If you draw all of the Pac-men you can draw in a level and lose them all without eating all of the ghosts, you lose. As well as that, you have to gobble down all of the different ghosts in a set time limit in order to win. There is ton to keep track of in the game, but the most important is guiding around your Pac-men.
Pac-Pix really gives you the power to choose Pac-mans fate when guiding him around the pages of a book. Pac-man can go from the bottom screen into the top screen if it is open, and you can even draw objects to help Pac-man out. One of these is the arrow feature. Basically when you unlock this feature and draw an arrow on the touch screen. When you draw the arrow, the arrow will go shooting off straight in the direction you drew the tail of the arrow. You can use this feature to pop bubbles that ghosts are inside of, and to hit various switches on the top or bottom screen. As well as all of that, when a ghost is hit directly by an arrow, it causes it to freeze in place for a short while. The other feature shown in the game is given in the later levels. This feature is the bomb feature, and it is used to help Pac-Man out a lot as well. The bomb feature allows you to blow up various obstacles like walls around ghosts and switches, or ghosts with covering over them. Just like the arrow feature, the bomb feature can be used to stop ghosts in their tracks as well.
In each course that passes by, there are new enemies that appear and show off their stuff. There are many unique types of ghosts that have their own little quirks to them that make them different from eachother. For instance, there is one type of ghost that moves very fast when Pac-man approaches. As well as that, there are many other types of ghosts, like ghosts that have to be chomped on twice, ghosts that can only be eaten from the back, and even ghosts with numbers on them that must be eaten in order. Each ghosts needs to be taken a different way, and each has its own strategy of being eaten.
With new enemies appearing, there have to be new obstacles. Things like blocks, and rocks can block Pac-man’s way and cause him to go bouncing off in the opposite direction. Also there are certain objects that will help you like mirrors, which will send your arrow bouncing so you can hit at different angles. Also, different types of switches, and bonus items will appear during the game that can either help you, or hurt you!
As well as the new enemies and obstacles appearing, there are also boss battles in this game. The boss battles are usually pretty long, each having its own unique way of being beaten. Sometimes, the bosses require you to just draw a bigger Pac-man, while other bosses require you to be drawing non-stop. It all depends on which level you are in, and what is required to beat the boss. Bosses appear once every few levels in the game.
In Pac-Pix, when you turn on the game and start it, there are 2 places you can choose to go to. You can either go to play in the Story mode, or go to the gallery. In Story Mode, or Book mode, there are 12 levels. Each level has 5 or 6 sublevels in it (1-1,1-2,etc.), and with each sublevel, the game becomes a little bit harder. At the end of each level, you earn a ranking for your performance.
In Gallery mode, there mare many options to choose from. In Gallery mode, you can look at cards you have unlocked, view explanations of the different gestures you need in the game, view the opening and ending movies of the game, and go to sketchbook mode. In Card mode, basically you can view cards you have unlocked by getting an A ranking or higher in a level. You already view the explanations and the opening and closing videos during the game, but if you forgot something from the explanation or story, or didn’t understand, you can go back and view these videos. Finally sketchbook mode is a free mode where you can just draw for fun. There are secret gestures in this mode that cannot be used during the game. Can you find all of these secret gestures?
Pac-Pix definitely shows some great imagination when it comes to its graphical style. The layout looks like a giant book with blank pages. In this book, there are cartoon like ghosts, making the game look like an in motion picture book. As well as that, in this game, different things like shooting arrows and blowing up bombs has some great quality. The game moves fluidly, and has graphics that definitely fit the game very well. The definitely appeal to a children’s imagination, because in a way, you make your own graphics by drawing your Pac-men however you want to, as well as bombs and arrows. Things like Bombs exploding and leaving burn marks, and making Pac-men shaped like a fish definitely lets you have some creativity in the graphical aspect. Although it is only a small amount, it is still very fun to play around with.
Sound in the game is decent considering the fact that there really isn’t too much sound going on. The only real sound going on in the main game is the sounds of the “Magic Pen”, Pac-man chomping away, arrows shooting off, bombs exploding, items appearing, and of course the music that plays in the background. The sounds match the actions very well, like Pac-man chomping sounds like the arcade days of Pac-man, while arrows shooting make a “whoosh!” sound, and bombs obviously make an exploding sound.
The music in the game has a pretty nice tempo, and matches the storybook setting of them game. It isn’t too terribly fast of a tempo, but a pretty moderate tempo that will keep you playing and enjoying the music. Although there is only 1 track, you barely notice the music because you are so concentrated on the game.
In gallery mode, there are more soundtracks to hear in the different modes, and in sketchbook mode, you might find some new sounds by drawing new gestures. Unlike the story mode song though, these songs are much slower. There isn’t much more to say that there are a few more songs in this mode than story mode, but these sounds are nothing unexpected from a typical game.
Replay value in the game is amazing, because there is so much creativity involved in this game. It is easy to go back to various levels because once you beat a level, you can easily go back and play it. As well as that, there are a few unlockables at the end of the game that will keep you coming to play more. As well as that, the card collecting system in interesting, and high scores gets you more cards; so beat your high score for more cards! As well as that, the game records scores, and every gamer loves to beat his/her high score! Pac-Pix is definitely a great addition to the Pac-man series. The game blows many gamers away in terms of innovation, and this game will definitely be remembered in the future for innovation. It is one of the best games out on the DS so far, and definitely one of the most innovative games created! This game will definitely be looked back on as an innovative game, and it is pure genius! This is definitely a great choice for a game to pick up, and plus, who wouldn’t want to create his/her own Pac-man?
