bit-tech Shopping: Namco Bandai PAC MAN WORLD 2 BUNDLE 3 GC

Rating: 8

Time with product:

Strengths: Pac-Man Vs. is great, PMW2 isn't too bad of a platformer for the price

Weaknesses: No "bots" for Pac-Man Vs., PMW2 can be stupidly difficult at times

Summary: I will go ahead and say that the main reason I bought this package was to have Pac-Man Vs. A friend introduced the game to me a couple of months ago, and it is awesome. One player plays Pac-Man with a Game Boy Advance (GBA SP highly recommended for this), while the other 1 to 3 players control the ghosts on the TV. Pac-Man has the advantage of viewing the entire playing field, naturally, while the ghosts are limited to viewing their immediate surroundings unless they eat a fruit. It may sound dull, but after playing it a bit with a full crowd you come to realize just how fun it is. Sadly, it can be difficult to round up four players, and the game has no option to use computer-controlled ghosts.As for Pac-Man World 2, it's a decent platformer. The graphics won't shock and amaze you, but they're solid. The sound and music suffice. My only significant issue with PMW2 is the occasionally cumbersome camerawork, which often bars you from getting a good look at where you can go without dying. Bosses are also a bit repetitive, often borrowing some of the same ideas from one another. This platformer follows the basic item-collecting spree that so many others have; I personally enjoy it, but if that doesn't appeal to you then this may not be your game.$20 for a fun multiplayer game and a sufficiently amusing platformer isn't a bad deal in my book. If you can find it for cheaper, or at all (I had to hunt quite a bit), more power to you.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 6 Months

Strengths: fun

Weaknesses: short

Summary: Pacman World 2 is a decent pacman game filled with mini-games and puzzles. You can unlock some of pac mans classic games. The graphics aren't great but they work. The game is somewhat short but with the ability to unlock classic pac-man you can spend hours chasing the yellow dots. Overall it is a fun pac-man game.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1 Year

Strengths: Pac Man vs. is great fun with your friends. A very creative game. The main game (Pac Man world 2) has some nice unlockables. And pac man sure is cute. The game is cheap!

Weaknesses: Cords get all twisted up when playing pac man vs. It's hard to get a group together to play pacman vs. Pac man world 2 is a rather average, boring platformer.

Summary: To start off, this game is only $20, so its quite the bargin. Pac-man vs, is a bonus disk, but it's the reason I bought this game. It's basicly a game of pac-man, but you and your friends are pacman and the ghosts. Pacman uses the gba to control, and its just like the old arcade game. The ghosts use regular controllers and chase pacman on the TV. the ghost that eats pacman gets to be pacman next. Play goes until a set score is reached. Quite fun, I assure you. Pacman world 2, however, is a rather lackluster, average platformer. You know the drill. Collect stuff, jump on things, beat a boss. Collect enough things to move on. Yawn. However, pacman has a nice charcter design, and there is lots of classic pacman arcade games to unlock. Fun!

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1

Strengths: pac man vs. is great...if you have the necessary equipment and friends

Weaknesses: Pac Man World 2 isn't very interesting

Summary: If you have what is required to play Pac Man Vs. (friends and a game boy advance and link cable for each), I would highly recommend this for Pac Man Vs (which is included only with the player's choice version).However, I would definitely not recommend buying this for Pac Man World 2. I found it to be a dull and uninspired platformer. as far as I can tell, it's only redeeming quality is that you can unlock the classic arcade games.Buy it if you could make use of Pac Man Vs. If you actually end up liking Pac Man World 2, great. If not, at least you still have Pac Man Vs.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 2 Years

Strengths: Fun take on the old Pac-Man theme, Pac-Man vs. is a great multiplayer game

Weaknesses: Control and camera issues, HORRIBLE start-up interface can easily lead to lost game saves

Summary: This double-disc set was one of the first games I got for the kids with their Gamecube a few years back. Growing up with the original Pac-Man, but not having played any of the Pac-Man titles since then, it was a bit of a shock to see a fully 3D Pac-man running and bouncing around various worlds. The gameplay of the core game (Pac-Man World 2) is fairly fun - you need to get through six different worlds, collecting pac dots, fruit, and tokens along the way. If you collect enough tokens you can unlock classic Pac-Man titles like Ms Pac-Man. Some twists are thrown in to keep the gameplay interesting: in one world, Pac-Man ice skates, and in another he roller blades. These are entertaining levels, although the camera is often uncooperative, which combined with touchy controls, leads to many frustrating moments of difficulty. The most horrendous aspect of this game though is the horribly designed opening screen, which prompts the player, by default, to select a new game and then a slot in which to save it, with the default set to overwrite any previous game. I had played through the game, putting in considerable effort to collect nearly every pac dot and fruit and most of the tokens. Then one day my 4 year-old played by himself, clicking through the opening screens as he does on most games, which resulted in his new game overwriting the completed game. It is absolutely unforgivable that they default that opening question to "New" instead of "Load", and compound it by making the overwrite of an old save the default. How often do you really want to start a game over and erase your existing data? It should be VERY hard to do this. Unfortunately, all of the classic Pac-Man games that I had unlocked were lost and we have never played the game again because of this. On the plus side, the Pac-Man Vs. game that is included on a separate disc is a nice little mini-game. It is a multi-player game designed to use the GameCube-GBA link cable. One player plays as Pac-Man on the GameBoy, and the others play as the ghosts on the GameCube. The maze is either the classic Pac-Man maze or some slight variation of it (classic appearance on the GameBoy, snazzy 3D version on the Gamecube). When a ghost player scores enough points, he becomes Pac-Man and takes the GameBoy controls, resulting in a musical chairs-like hopping around of all the players, which is great fun with the kids. This is a simple, but great multi-player game.