Pac-Man World 2

GameCube, Pac-Man World 2 (2002) game

The 'Cube wasn't well served with platform games, perhaps this was the beginning of the decline in interest in these free-roaming adventure collect-'em-ups as larger game worlds began to be used for other genres, platforming subsumed into them. Although the N64 wasn't exactly awash with them, the games it did have were fantastic and some of the best on the system ('Banjo-Kazooie,' 'DK64,' 'Super Mario 64,' 'Banjo-Tooie'), while the poor 'Cube had to make do with 'Super Mario Sunshine' and… that was about it for triple-A titles. I was missing the glory days, and having already replayed all the top N64 platformers in recent years I began to collect any I could for the 'Cube, and because NGC Magazine gave this particular game a decent score and described it as pilfering everything from Mario I felt there was a reasonable chance it would be worth playing.

First impressions were good, with a nice presentation, and the greenery of the first level in the Pac-Village bringing to mind opening levels from 'Banjo-Kazooie' or 'Space Station Silicon Valley' with plenty to collect, pleasing sounds, jaunty tunes and a few NPCs to talk to, not to mention a hut housing potentially unlockable goodies in the shape of classic Pac-Man games of yore. It was basic, simplistic, but boded well, as you'd expect a first level to be the most basic, and I still assumed it was going to follow more modern convention. Except once you get into the proper levels you realise that was just a kind of hub to introduce the concepts (if that were really necessary), and the other levels were pretty linear, didn't have mini-games (unless you count the Pac Maze hidden in most of them), or tasks to break up the old-fashioned pixel-perfectness of twitch skill that were the bane of 2D platformers, nor did it have any more characters to meet, aside from Boss Battles, quickly plunging the gamer a step backwards into a strictly 2D style of platforming, full of instant death (discouraging experimentation and exploration), through the generally straightforwardly navigable A-to-B environments, which were, unsurprisingly, but uninspiringly, of the same old 'forest,' 'ice,' 'lava,' 'ocean' cliche convention.

I wouldn't shaft a game like this for being unoriginal, if only it were more fun and the kind of experience I'd come to expect: free-roaming, varied locales, filled with things to see and do; tasks to accomplish, miniature stories to follow; new moves to learn… But while the environments were varied, they were fairly limited in exploration value, ignoring all the development that had come with 3D levels which were all about giving you a landscape to explore and the tools to unlock it, and the moves set you're given at the start is all you get. The reason to bring new moves into it is to give a sense of progression through learning, enabling backtracking to recover items previously inaccessible or areas previously not open, but in this case the only reason to return was to have another go at locating all the collectables you might have missed, or to take part in a Time Trial, neither of which gave me enough incentive to want to revisit these sometimes frustrating and occasionally unfair levels. Part of the frustration comes from death being so easy to come by, but also because you often don't feel it's your fault: the camera is an essential part of a 3D game, and this one was atrocious, many deaths resulting in its sticking on scenery or insistence on locking to one perspective so you had to adjust the control method in your brain and hands. Almost as bad was the lack of a first person option so when you wanted to scout a level it was annoying your only option was to move the camera around Pac-Man for a limited view.

The other issue is Pac-Man's traction, or lack - if you move onto a curved surface you generally start to slide and then roll off. Makes sense, Pac-Man's round, but you don't feel like you have the kind of control of your character to provide close identification, and things are too loose to give you the feeling of freedom. The moves you do have tended towards the slightly annoying: for example the stomp move where you bounce down after a jump also makes you bounce up again so you can continually bounce around, but otherwise have to stop before you can get back to moving normally again. The roll manoeuvre, perhaps the most enjoyable move in your repertoire, which also opens up the ability to reach further areas like a pinball, could also be imprecise to control, even with the option to make a dead stop in midair. The lack of a double-jump, the fact the camera was all over the place, combined with moving platforms and hard to judge distances, could make it a chore to complete when you were traversing levels with a lot of fall potential. Earlier levels, like Forest and Snow Mountain, were more enjoyable, but there always seems to be a tendency in games to increase difficulty as you progress by turning down the light levels and having instant death on every side, instead of intelligently stretching the concept of earlier levels. I don't think I've ever seen a final level that wasn't dark and physically tricky, and I wish more inventiveness could be applied sometimes, even as a project nears its end for weary developers.

Not that this was the game to make an original statement. It does do some things differently (apparently additions to the series after the non-GameCube original, 'Pac-Man World'), with underwater swimming sections, submarine battling, and skating, but these were the most frustrating of all and while in the early levels I at least made an effort to collect all the fruit, coins and Pac-Dots, with these levels I just wanted to get through them as quickly as possible. You do get the intense concentration and feeling of impending doom when trying to collect so much without dying, and there's a sense of relief when a checkpoint is reached, but it's all very much in the tradition of the 2D platformer, which I was far less enamoured with than 3D - the only saving grace is that, unlike such classics as 'Rainbow Islands' and 'RoboCod,' you don't have the requirement of completion in one sitting. On the other hand it makes it a fairly brief game, the longevity sparking from a desire to return to levels for a 100% rating, but, while at one time I would have made every effort to do that, I don't have the patience or inclination to put that kind of work in, especially on a game as simple and unremarkable as this, so I had played through all the levels and beaten Spooky in just over seven hours, with an 81% completion and a score of 373,490.

The incentives weren't bad in collecting the coin tokens, since you had the opportunity to play old Pac games, but although I unlocked all but 'Ms. Pac-Man,' only 'Pac-Attack' provided any worthwhile play time: a kind of 'Tetris' ripoff with Pac uniqueness of adding ghosts and Pac-Man himself into the mix. Even that wasn't a big enough draw to keep me entertained for long. I was disappointed that you couldn't choose what to release your tokens on, each game automatically unlocked as you hit a certain number collected, as it would give the player more freedom to decide which game they most wanted to play first, saving them up for a specific one. The other arcade games were merely variations on the 'Pac-Man' formula, and although I'd have loved to have opened the Museum or whatever it was that was under repair in the Village, I wasn't going to go back through and find more tokens. Even the simple satisfaction of picking up the Golden Fruit after beating each Boss, as you would a Jiggy in 'Banjo' or whatever's at the end of a dungeon in 'Zelda,' was denied you, with no tinkling encouragement for your efforts and the time to go over and claim the prize - it just ends, the fruit given to you unceremoniously.

Not to say the game wasn't challenging - barely seven hours play time doesn't sound like much, but it kept me stubbornly plugging away at the trial and error of getting to the end of each level, and the Bosses, while not too difficult, often took a few attempts to defeat (mainly because it was so easy to fall off the edge of a platform to your doom!). But it was more from rugged determination and through gritted teeth than for enjoyment's sake that I persevered to the end of the game. Repetitively frustrating, it was ironic that the points where you played old 'Pac-Man' dressed up in new graphics were the most enjoyable as there was no danger of falling to your doom, it was purely about avoiding ghosts. Like 2D 'Bomberman' maybe they should have stuck to the original formula rather than making it a halfway house between original concept and entering the 3D arena, not that there was much competition on 'Cube, which is why I was so eager to give it a go. Technically it was fine, not impressive as 'Banjo' is to me even now, full of cheery music, the graphical style simple, but well-defined (until the gloomy Ghost Island where I thought I'd entered 'MarioKart's Banshee Boardwalk!), and if the levels had been more like the Village I could imagine recommending it as a middling example of 3D platforming on the 'Cube, but instead it's one I can't see myself ever having the desire to revisit, except perhaps for a quick bash of 'Pac Attack.'

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