Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX Review

Longtime fans of the site will know that I am a huge Pac-Man: Championship Edition fan and have the highest recorded score in the game (well, before they wiped the leaderboards clean a few months back anyway) so it was with great anticipation that I took some time out from developing to play the sequel, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX.

I can say without hyperbole, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX is a worthy sequel to some of the best games ever created (the original Pac-Man and Pac-Man: Championship Edition) and is probably the best game that will come out this year. Given that this is a year that has included gems like Super Meat Boy & Civilization V, that’s saying a lot.

The style is a little different than the original due to a few new additions.  Ghost trains – long processions of ghosts that follow your every move, just waiting to be devoured in a score boosting massacre of awesomeness – are great fun and bombs that can be used at any time to scare all ghosts back into the trap in the middle (albeit at a hit to your speed level) help to make the game more accessible to beginners. To go with the ghost trains, sleeping ghosts are scattered throughout the maps and by running past them, you can wake them up and add them to your ghost train. Oh and some sleeping ghosts have power pellets within them to add to the ghost clearing combo craziness. A bullet-time effect when you’re about to die, thus allowing you to avoid defeat helps to make the game more about strategy and planning rather than just quick reflexes. That’s not to say that quick reflexes aren’t necessary, just that it’s a bit more manageable. Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX is now more about good strategy and planning and less about having your perfect run ruined because the ghost with the random AI decided to step in front of you.

There’s a lot more game here this time. Whereas the first game only had 5 courses, this one has 9 – Championship Edition I & II, Highway, Junction, Spiral, Manhattan, Dungeon, Half, and Darkness. Each course has a number of modes as well – Score Attack in both 5 and 10 minute varieties, various Time Trials (stuff like eat 6 fruit as quickly as possible) and Ghost Combo mode. There’s a Free mode with unlimited lives and bombs where you can turn off random ghosts that is great for beginners or experts trying to perfect their technique. You can choose between 3 difficulties – make it easier for more lives & bombs or make it harder for a higher initial speed level (making it easier to get points). Oh and there are also 5 songs you can choose from (the original only had one song) and a number of graphic skins that you can use to customize your playing experience.

Even more than its predecessor, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX is a game about high scores. Thanks to the close shave slowdown effect & your bombs, it’s much easier to stay alive than it was in the first game – in fact, one of the game’s achievements is to play a perfect game. However, mere survival isn’t the goal – the goal is to climb through the leaderboards with better and better scores. And what leaderboards! There are a ton of leaderboards to compete on (just about 1 for each course & mode combination) plus there are total score leaderboards for the truly dedicated. And as a nice touch, your current rank in each mode is shown when you select a course to play.

The User Interface has been upgraded to be more useful. A bar that shows how much power pill charge you have left is useful to both novices and experts alike, but expert players will especially appreciate having the current speed value displayed as well as a number total of how many fruits you’ve eaten for each side – very helpful if you want to plan out more complicated board clearing combinations than just keeping both sides equal.

There’s more content, more customization, improvements for both beginners and expert players alike, but most importantly, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX is simply more fun than its predecessor. The gameplay style is a little different than the first Championship Edition due to the various additions they’ve made so you might want to keep the first game installed for nostalgia and the occasional change of pace, but all in all, I can say that the new additions and improvements to Championship Edition DX make for a much more enjoyable game that rewards skillful play with pure joy. If this game was a full retail release at $60, I would still recommend a purchase – at a mere 800 MS points ($10), your course is clear. Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX needs to be the next game you purchase.

5 Responses

  1. This game is awesome. It’s too early to say, and it’s too fresh in my brain, but there is a good chance this will be my XBLA game of the year.

  2. Thanks for the great write-up. I liked the first one a lot and DX is simply sublime. I was glad to learn how an expert player perceives the game’s many changes and additions. 🙂

  3. Thanks for the clarifications! Nice to know that I as a CE owner won’t be paying for the same content twice.

    If one doesn’t want to wait for the PSP version to get some mobile Pac-Man action, the iOS version is already available.

  4. Although the DX makes it sound like an enhanced version, in actuality, it’s more of a sequel. Most of the courses in CE are not in DX. Also, the gameplay styles are a bit different due to the additions in DX – CE has a greater focus on fast reflexes, whereas DX has a greater emphasis on strategy and planning.

    If you’re a huge fan, it’s worth it to buy both. If not, then just get DX. Or alternatively, buy DX for your 360/PS3 and buy the original CE for the PSP when it comes out later this year for portable fun.

  5. Very nice! I can’t wait to play it.

    In addition to new content, does this game include the same levels and modes as its predecessor? Or is there a reason for buyers of the DX edition to buy the vanilla CE as well?

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