Taste-Test: Pac-Man

At the Nintendo press conference this year, one of the biggest things that was stressed to the audience was the great potential in connectivity between the GameCube and the Game Boy Advanced. The title that really stood out in demonstrating this potential was a twist on the classic Pac-Man, developed by the hand of Shigeru Miyamoto himself.

How it works is that there are four players - three with GCN controllers, and the fourth with a GBA plugged in as a controller. The three players with GCN controllers each play as an individual Ghost, hunting Pac-Man - played by the fourth person with the GBA. As well, the three must work to evade Pac-Man whenever the Spheroid One powers up and starts his own Ghost-hunt. The trick of the game lies in field of vision: As a Ghost, your character is on the television screen with the other two, each of the three having a circular field of vision limited to two or three inches on the screen in every direction. With this restriction, the challenge lies in moving all about the maze and attempting to catch the person playing Pac-Man, who has the maze in full displayed on the GBA screen and can see where you as Ghosts are at all times. The hunting task is not impossible, aided by a glowing trail left in Pac-Man's wake as he moves by. Further help comes in the form of the fruit that appears on the map. If, as a ghost, you eat the fruit, your (and only your) field of vision will nearly double in size. However, if the person playing Pac-Man eats the fruit, the vision fields for ALL the ghosts will shrink by about half.

Moving on, let's say you catch Pac-Man. You nabbed him, he's Ghost-killed. What happens now? Here's the fun part. You hand your Ghost GCN controller over to the guy that played as Pac-Man, and he gives you the GBA. Now, you play as the pill-chomper, and he's the ghost you once were. The entire game runs on a timer, with the person playing Pac-Man getting points for eating regular pills, Super Pills, Ghosts, and the fruit, but losing a sizable chunk of points (about 1,600) whenever a Ghost catches him/her to keep things fair. At time's end, whoever held on to the most points is the winner. Playing this, I (and the rest of the staff) found that one of the great challenges in the game is walking the fine edge between cooperating with your fellow Ghosts to get Pac-Man, and knowing when to abandon any alliances in order to nab the Round Runner yourself. That, combined with the reflexes needed to now outrun and outwit human opponents instead of a computer, and trying not to anger the other ghost players such that it comes back to haunt you when you switch controllers again, add layer upon layer of fun to this arcade classic. Heh, see that? I made a funny. See, "Ghosts", "haunt"? See? ... Okay, it's forgotten.

Controls were very simplistic. VERY simplistic. As in the Control sticks and D-Pad were all that were used. However, this was supposedly just a very detailed demo, leaving the mind to wander as to what the controller buttons might be used for. From what I played at E3, this is shaping up to be one of the top party games in the near future - the kind you grab some friends together, order a few pizzas, break open sodas and chips, and just go at it for hours into the night. The kind of game that will appeal to both those that make a point to buy games, or just rent - you can have some fun either way.

Mike Twomey