Gaming Gold Championship Edition
What makes a classic, today? Pac-Man C.E. examined.
January 5th, 2011
Wakka Wakka Wakka... There’s something in the spirit of a classic game that makes it a classic. Feeds the nostalgia. You can play the original game that you remember from your youth, but often it’s best left untouched. The mental image intact. It seems in this day and age you can have the best of both worlds.
You would have been forgiven for believing the dot-chomping ghost-evading sub-genre that is Pac-Man had nowhere else to go, but with the original Pac-Mac Championship Edition (2007, XBLA), we were proven otherwise. An imaginative new take on the original 1980 arcade game, led by the same legendary game designer Tōru Iwatani, set a new standard for re-making a classic.
What made Pac-Man C.E. work was its respect for the original game, while introducing genuinely new concepts. With dynamic mazes, ghost combos and a steadily growing thumping soundtrack, it was a familiar experience with a new intensity.
Remade and re-imagined games are aplenty, but few hone in on what made the original so special in the first place. Pac-Man C.E. makes the case that they can look and offer whatever the hell they want, as long as they feel and sound familiar. Comfortably familiar. Bionic Commando Rearmed jumps to mind as a similarly well crafted pseudo sequel.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is now available on XBLA and PSN, delivering everything which made C.E. work, with new modes, mazes and successfully adding a new gameplay element in the form of ghost trains and bombs. Just four ghosts is so 1980.
Both games are excellent, with DX slightly superseding the original. The point is, we have Pac-Man. Or more, we had Pac-Man in 1980. Pac-Man C.E. is exactly how it should be experienced today.
I would invite Namco Bandai to follow their own lead closely, but they already intend to with a wave of “Namco Generations” titles planned in the coming year. Next up, Galaga.
What made Pac-Man C.E. work was its respect for the original game, while introducing genuinely new concepts. With dynamic mazes, ghost combos and a steadily growing thumping soundtrack, it was a familiar experience with a new intensity.
Meanwhile the simple the control method and instantly recognizable sound effects remained the same. Perfect.
Remade and re-imagined games are aplenty, but few hone in on what made the original so special in the first place. Pac-Man C.E. makes the case that they can look and offer whatever the hell they want, as long as they feel and sound familiar. Comfortably familiar. Bionic Commando Rearmed jumps to mind as a similarly well crafted pseudo sequel.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is now available on XBLA and PSN, delivering everything which made C.E. work, with new modes, mazes and successfully adding a new gameplay element in the form of ghost trains and bombs. Just four ghosts is so 1980.
Both games are excellent, with DX slightly superseding the original. The point is, we have Pac-Man. Or more, we had Pac-Man in 1980. Pac-Man C.E. is exactly how it should be experienced today.
I would invite Namco Bandai to follow their own lead closely, but they already intend to with a wave of “Namco Generations” titles planned in the coming year. Next up, Galaga.
Images
