PAC-MAN MUSEUM+

I wanted to go back to Pac-Man's roots and see how he evolved through his arcade years. Fortunately, while developing [b] Pac-Man World Re-Pac [/b], Namco had released [b] Pac-Man Museum+ [/b] as a sort of teaser for the game. This game showed off Pac-Man and the Ghosts’ newest graphical updates, while providing players the chance to explore Pac-Man's history. I just can’t help but feel like this game was a half-baked effort just to release something while the people waited for [b] World Re-Pac [/b]. [h1] The Arcade [/h1] Upon booting up the game, you enter the Arcade, playing as Pac-Man himself. This serves as the hub area for you to roam between the arcade games. Each game, with some exceptions, has its respective cabinet in the Arcade, allowing the player to walk up to it, pop in a quarter, and start playing. Just like the old days, right? Each cabinet also has a blurb on the history of its game. This gives an interesting overview of the development of the game and the history of the yellow fella. The Arcade starts plain, but as you play more games, complete more missions, and earn more coins. The Arcade starts to fill up with more guests, more decorations, and more games. The game allows you to customize the arcade completely to your liking, being a cute pseudo-arcade manager simulator. This is where my complaints start, though. The Arcade is incredibly underwhelming for what it is. It’s an incredibly small room, and once you start to fill it up with more decorations and guests, it can be irritating to try and navigate through. You can just remove some decorations to make it easier to navigate. But you’re in an arcade, why would you want to take out the games and leave it empty? As you may have noticed earlier, I mentioned that not every game has its cabinet. These are the games that primarily saw console releases instead of an arcade release. Which I get, they didn’t have a real arcade cabinet to model for this game. But still, they could have totally designed a new cabinet for each of the games, instead of creating one “Free-Play” cabinet for all the excluded games. Finally, the arcade is just a boring environment to be in. I remember playing the classic [b] Namco Museum [/b] titles for the original PlayStation, and you get to navigate this huge museum with its little exhibits, you can set off alarms if you mess with something, all along with playing the games featured in the collection. It would have been so cool if they did that for this game, too. Have exhibits for Pac-People (Can’t have Ms. Pac-Man, since she’s in legal Hell), the Ghosts, and the Fruits. Having Pac-Man's complete library would be incredibly cool, too. I’m not saying they all must be playable, but it’d be neat for you to be able to walk around the museum, walk up to a copy of [b] Pac-Man World 3 [/b], and read a blurb that says “Originally conceived as Pac-Man Adventures...” This is the kind of stuff that makes this game feel half-baked. I can cut the middleman here and emulate most of these games. Give me a reason why I should purchase this collection aside from owning “official” copies of the games. [h1] The Games [/h1] I’m not going to go into detail about each game; I’ll try and summarize my feelings about a few of them. The original, the classic, [b] Pac-Man (1980) [/b]. A lot tougher than I ever gave it credit for, completing the missions was a real pain. Can’t go wrong with this one, though. The sequel to the original, [b] Super Pac-Man (1982) [/b]. It had troubles living up to the success of its predecessor, but it’s still an addictive quarter-muncher. Easier than the original but can still be troublesome when collecting the keys to open the doors. One of my personal favorites in this collection, [b] Pac-Mania (1987) [/b]. Pac-Man is back to his classic formula, but with a couple of more ghosts and a new jumping ability. I just love the design of this game; it brought a ton of life while keeping the gameplay of the original and building on it. [b] Pac-Attack (1993) [/b] is a reskin of [b] Cosmo Gang the Puzzle [/b]. I loved this game in [b] Pac-Man World 2 [/b], but playing it again was an underwhelming experience. It’s basically a Tetris-style game with a Pac-Man skin on it; you line up ghosts, and once you get the Pac-Man block, he goes through and eats them. A fun game, but I’d much rather play [b] Tetris [/b] or even [b] Puyo Puyo [/b]. [b] Pac-In-Time (1995) [/b] is a rebranding of an MS-DOS game titled [b] Fury of the Furries [/b]. One of the more underwhelming titles of the collection, it features different levels from the game it’s based upon, but keeps the same core gameplay. Pac-Man platforms through a variety of different levels while getting power-ups like a rope swing, fireball, a hammer, and... swimming? I completed about 19 levels, realized it's all the same, and threw in the towel. [b] Pac-Mania [/b] only beats this one for my favorite because of nostalgia, but [b] Pac-Man Arrangement (1996) [/b] is a blast of a game. Like [b] Pac-Mania [/b], it takes the original gameplay and develops it further while reskinning the game and making it a fresh experience. This game introduces the ghost [i] Kinky [/i], who can upgrade the original four ghosts into more threatening enemies. The gameplay is incredibly fast-paced, the ghosts are challenging, all around a fantastic experience. Originating from Namco Museum Remix, [b] Pac-Motos (2007) [/b] is a reskin of Namco’s 1985 game [b] Motos [/b]. It’s an alright game, it boasts its own adventure mode, but I think it would work better as a more arcade-style game, as it originally did. No one is going to go, “Oh man, Level 2-4 of [b] Pac-Motos [/b] ripped, dude! Let’s play that one again!” The best part about this game is that it’s the easiest to grind Arcade coins in. [b] Pac-Man 256 (2016) [/b] originally began as a phone game from the developers of [b] Crossy Road [/b]. I think this one appeals to certain people. I found the game to be incredibly boring and just mind-numbing to play. I want to complete all the missions, but collecting 40800 coins to upgrade ten power-ups in this game sounds like such a monumental task and not worth it. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] This game isn’t a bad collection of Pac-Man games. A lot of these, I haven’t played, and I’m sure most people haven’t either. For what it’s worth, I had a good time playing the games on this collection, and I’ll probably end up going back to a couple of them if I ever need to kill 15 minutes or so. Most of my complaints surrounding this game just go towards it having a lot of missed potential with the “Museum” aspect, along with how grindy some of the game’s missions can be. But it’s a cute little game and succeeds in giving the average player a chance to play Pac-Man's older games and learn the yella fella’s history.