Pac-Man Fever

"Terrible. My goodness, this game is bad."

A Mario Party copy, only much, much worse. Fewer mini-games, no items, and 90% luck...horrible.

Graphics: 8/10

Fine. No glitches, nothing amazing, but certainly solid. Good graphics.

Sound: 4/10

Boops, bops, and repetitive music. This game is better with the volume off.

Gameplay: 3/10

Wow. Let's see here...you start out on a board map with four players, be they human or computer. You play a mini-game, and the winner gets to move the farthest on the board. Along the way, you hit things like token spaces, which can be used to purchase things when you hit store spaces, where you can move yourself forwards or others back, or buy raffle tickets to increase chances of getting a Redemption Ticket at the raffle (come back to that later). The first player to reach the finish wins. Unfortunately, most to all of it is luck. You could hit a spring space that sends you ahead of your opponents, or you could lose half your tokens and then get sent back five spaces. Now, granted, as opposed to the randomness of a Dice Block, how far you move is determined by how well you do in the minigames. I found myself able to instantly master the concept of some minigames, and in others the computers crush me because AI has an advantage in the design of the game. It's typically either an easy victory or a never-had-a-chance loss. Once in awhile there'll be a close matchup, and there are a few minigames with some redeeming qualities, but most of it is just pure luck. Playing with humans only makes these overly frenetic and crazily random games frustrating. The winner will feel no sense of reward except he ended up on the right side of things more often then not, and the losers will always feel cheated somehow. And, like I said, there are a few okay minigames, but virtually nothing relies on skill. It's all luck and chance, and when on you're on the wrong side, it's...annoying, followed by aggravating and then downright ridiculously frustrating. Plus there are hardly any minigames! In one Normal length game, I played one minigame four times, and several others two or three times.

Story: 2/10

Some random guys stole a minigame trophy and now Pac-Man and the Ms., along with four randomly assorted Namco characters, must get it back by buying all the minigames to get a VIP ticket inside this private place. Terrible story.

With no other options other then the terrible board maps and random minigames, this just fails to deliver. Mario Party may not be the greatest, but it's certainly better then this junk. Possibly worth a rent, but just go to some friend's house who thinks it's good and has all the minigames unlocked, and play the minigames that are good for about an hour there. A couple hours is really all this game has to offer, but it's hidden underneath at least 10 of frustration and stupidity.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/17/07