Pac-Pix retains many of the things you’d associate with the highly addictive Pac-Man games of old, but readapts the whole idea with DS functionality in mind. Gameplay throughout the title involves using your stylus to literally draw Pac-Man onto the touchscreen, and then to manouvre him around to catch the ghosts within a set time limit.
Moving him around this time though isn’t done via the D-pad as you would expect, but rather by drawing walls around the screen, forcing Pac-Man to change directions, with him then moving in the direction that you drew the line. Drawing Pac-Man itself is incredibly easy. Just start with two lines for the mouth, and then draw a circle from the bottom of his mouth right around to the top. The game is quite generous with this, so you really don’t have to be a perfect artist. Just make sure you draw the Pac-Man shape in one motion without lifting the stylus from the screen, and he’ll spring to life.
Drawing walls for your Pac-Man is essential.
The size of your Pac-Man determines the speed that he’ll move at. Small ones will speed across the screen, catching ghosts with ease. On the downside, because of their size, you’ll have to be very accurate with your scribblings. Conversely, a large Pac-Man will obviously have a much bigger mouth with which to eat ghosts with, but he’ll move much slower as a result. You can have up to three Pac-Man drawings on the screen at any given time, and some of the later levels require more than one on screen at once due to the amount of ghosts on screen. However, there is a limited amount of them that you can draw for each round. Pac-Man can die when he leaves the screen, so obviously, filling the screen with three or four at once might be a good way to catch ghosts, but drawing enough walls to keep them from dying is a trickier prospect.
While Pac-Pix starts off as incredibly basic, elements are soon thrown into the mix. Not only do the levels become more complicated with walls and tunnels on the top screen, but you get given extra drawing abilities too. The first thing you get is the arrows which can be used to free ghosts hidden on the top screen and activate switches. These are simple to draw; just sketch a triangle with a line coming down from the top and it’ll shoot off in the angle that the line was drawn. The second ability is the bomb. This is used for destroying walls and is as simple to draw as a circle with a line representing the fuse coming out of the top of it. By drawing the fuse to a flame it will light the bomb, triggering the explosion.
The game also contains some interesting boss encounters. Despite the first boss being as simple as drawing a Pac-Man larger than him, the ones later involving the arrows and the bombs prove a much more interesting challenge. At the end of each Chapter, you are given a grade (between A – E, and an even higher S rank for perfectionists), lending the game some extra longevity as you go back and try for the best score possible. Unfortunately, the game only stores your highest score, which kills High Scores competitions between multiple players.
Pac-Man also has arrows and bombs at his disposal
It's the brief lifespan that ends up hurting Pac-Pix, however. The game is broken up into twelve chapters, with around five or six levels in each. This is a decent amount of levels, and there’s a ‘Book 2’ upon completion (essentially a harder version of what you’ve just played through), but it doesn’t take too long finish it all. Also, while the game does its best to change throughout the game by adding new abilities and puzzles, as well as a decent amount of different enemy types into the mix, things remain uncomfortably similar throughout and the title suffers as a result. Unlockables are slim, with only character cards available for gaining high scores; surely an old school Pac-Man game could have been thrown on here as an extra? There’s no multiplayer here at all either, a shame given that Pac-Man Vs on the GameCube would have been ideally suited for the DS.
Graphically, however, it’s hard to fault the game. Pac-Pix uses a beautiful story-book style that literally looks like a mixture of crayons and water-colour paint on a pale canvas. It’s all wonderfully unique and full of colour. The animation throughout is also of a high standard, especially on Pac-Man himself - no matter what hideous shape you make him, he’ll move just as well as he would if you drew him perfectly. The classic Pac-Man theme provides much of the games’ soundtrack, but beyond that it’s all rather forgettable. Sound effects fit the game well, even if the noise for Pac-Man himself can become irritating after a while.
Despite the fact it’s not a hard game, isn’t terribly long, features no multiplayer and contains next to no unlockable content, it’s hard not to enjoy Pac-Pix's unique charms. An entirely new method of gameplay doesn’t come around too often these days, so when it does, it’s often worth grabbing with both hands. And for all it's faults, the fact that Pac-Pix feels so entirely fresh is the main reason why this game is a success. It’s not going to last you long given the length and general style of game, but it’s something none of us has experienced in the past, and for that reason alone, it's worth a try. That, and the fact it’s a great deal of fun anyway.
Loading...
