Pac-Man

"Pac-Man On Xbox Live Arcade"

It's a good thing when you can get classic arcade games on your online arcade system. And we are not going back to just the good old days of the first consoles, but back a little bit further to the coin-op joystick button jabbing days of Pac-Man. Unlike the massive amounts of quarters that you would pump into a Pac-Man arcade game you will be able to download this game in its entire version with the ability to pick up where Pinky, Blinky, Inky, and Clyde cut you down. It's fast, simple, and fun. You can pretty much save your progress as you go along so that if you lose your three lives and quit the game you will be able to go back to where you died and actually finish this thing. The classic siren noise sounds off your background as you munch your way to eating all of the dots on the maze.

The difficulty is challenging, but being able to finish this game without having to purchase more Xbox Live points makes it a very fast game to play. What really helps out however are the achievement points and the scoreboard so that you can try to perform some very challenging acts in Pac-Man as well as see how well you fare with your friends and the world. What lacks about this game is some competitive play so that you could challenge your friends, but this is only a single player game.

The achievements are somewhat challenging to unlock. I was able to get all of them except for one which calls for you to eat all of the ghosts four times in a level. That's eating all four of the big dots to change those dudes into edibles and then eating all four of them each time. Pretty tough. But that's the only one I have yet to get. The other ones are level based where you eat the fruit presented to unlock the achievement. So is it worth the points? I would suggest it is. I've had the opportunity of playing Pac-Man on an arcade so I know how true to the classic this game remains on the Xbox Live arcade. There are no touch-ups or anything. Just plain classic Pac-Man. If you want a quick game to get achievement points on then this is definitely one that will get you some quickly. Nostalgia lovers will also delight. But it is definitely for those of us who has fed Pac-Man more quarters than dots and who want to see what happens in between the levels of the game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/08

Game Release: Pac-Man (US, 08/09/06)