As GameShark’s official Xbox Live Arcade reviewer, I know enough about the service to say it has some great sleeper hits on it. Games like Geometry Wars, Cloning Clyde and Uno have made playing the games on the service quite a joy. On the other hand, playing arcade rehashes has started to become a chore.
Sure, when the service first started, we were treated to games like Joust, which; while primarily was the old school arcade game we knew and love, also had additional features that compelled us to purchase the game: things like HD backgrounds and Xbox Live multiplayer for starters.
Recently however, Namco/Bandai has gotten into the act and released their old school arcade games on Xbox Live Arcade. First there was Galaga, and now there’s Pac-Man and you really can’t say anything about them except they are major disappointments.
Now, if you’re in 1981, you will love this game. It’s a faithful recreation of the arcade game that pretty much started it all. All of the original sounds and graphics are there, complete with the arcade intermissions that show us one of the first videogame sequels – Ms. Pac Man.
So what’s the problem? The control for starters. The control on this game makes me long for a keyboard. Using the analog stick is akin to having butter on your hands because Pac-Man never seems to go where you want him to go. Unfortunately, the d-pad is not much of a help either. It is absolutely frustrating to try to control Pac-Man.
As I mentioned before, this is a fantastic re-creation of the original arcade game. The game is in standard definition, although the Xbox main page for Pac-Man says it’s a high-definition game. I have to tell you, having static displays of the exterior arcade cabinet isn’t my impression of “high definition,” that’s for sure. The screen only takes up the middle 1/3 of your television and again, the screen is pretty small for me on an HD screen. What’s interesting is that some games had a cocktail mode in the early 80’s so you could landscape the game. I don’t think Pac-Man was allowed because of the maze, but it still might not have been a bad idea to do so (although the Atari 5200 version was compressed to make it fit full screen, it still had a very similar maze to the arcade game).
What you see is what you get with Pac-Man. There are no added features to speak of. There’s no online multiplayer or split screen – there’s not even a 2 player hot seat game, which is a pretty big omission. There’s the usual amount of Gamerscore points and like Galaga, you can start the game on any level that you’ve completed, which makes achievements like “get to level 20” carry very little weight. You can modify the number of lives per game and the score required for an extra Pac-Man, but doing so disqualifies you for the online leaderboards.
Pac-Man is a pretty big disappointment for me. The game is $5 or 400 Microsoft Points. For $10 total, you can purchase Galaga and Pac-Man. Or for $10, you can get one month’s worth of gaming on GameTap with over 500 classic games, and for me the choice is obvious.
I’m beginning to wonder if anyone will release and XBLA game on a Wednesday and just expect the cash to roll in. In the future, I think Microsoft better make sure that the quality of the Xbox Live Arcade games meets a certain standard before it starts to become a dumping ground for stuff like this. During the summer of 2006, we had five consecutive weeks of XBLA games (Frogger, Cloning Clyde, Street Fighter ][, Galaga and Pac-Man). Of the five, only one was very strong (Cloning Clyde) and two were satisfactory (SF ][ and Frogger). The Namco games are at the bottom of the summer of Xbox Live, and that’s a shame because I expected so much more.
