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Pac-Man vs.
  GCPuzzleUC  
  opened by paleface at 03:45:35 08/09/04  
  last modified by paleface at 12:27:18 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=GC; cat=Puzzle; reg=NA]
           
Inventive multiplayer-only game requiring a GBA and a link cable. The person controlling Pac-Man navigates through one of six or so mazes on the GBA screen while the one to three other players move around the maze in a 3D split-screen view (sort of weird round split-screen) on the TV--the ghosts can only see a small portion of the maze around them, so they have to use teamwork to trap Pac-Man.
 
The ghost who gets to Pac-Man gets 1600 points (at least that's how much it gave with three players, I don't know if it changes with a different number of players) and gets to play Pac-Man next in a freshly-dotted maze, after swapping controllers with the previous Pac-Man player. As Pac-Man, of course, you can get points by eating dots or ghosts, but anyone can eat the fruit--so sometimes a ghost will just camp out in the fruit area. When a ghost eats the fruit their view zooms out for a little while, allowing them to trap Pac-Man more easily. Oh yeah, Pac-Man leaves a colored streak behind him to help the ghosts stay on his track in their zoomed-in view. The ghosts move at exactly the same speed as Pac-Man normally, and slightly slower after Pac-Man eats a power pellet. Oh yeah, and if you play with less than four players, the CPU controls the other ghosts, and if a ghost player goes through them, the get switched to that player's color, and if they then tag Pac-Man, the player of that color gets the points for the tag.
 
You play to a certain point total, whoever gets there first wins. All in all it works pretty well if you have other players who are in to the spirit of the thing with you. It's an actually clever and necessary use of the GBA as screen/controller--normally I'm not at all a fan of Nintendo's "connectivity" craze, but you really couldn't have done this game without it.
 
Supposedly Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto helped out in the design, and maybe it was him who got that really irritating "it's-a me, Mario!" guy's voice added in over the gameplay. Really, really annoying. Mario isn't even in the damn game! I hate that guy.
 
Annoyingly, Namco doesn't sell Pac-Man vs. by itself, you have to get it bundled in with Pac-Man World 2, a rather mediocre-ish-looking platform came--it's no Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (see entry 380), that's for sure. I'd like to get PMv but I really don't want PMW2. Oh well, I suppose I'll knuckle under some day.
 
  paleface 18:57:29 09/10/04
           
Supports progressive scan. Did I mention that the Mario voice is incredibly annoying? 'Cause it is.
    
 
references:
· Pac-Man World 2 (GC)

 
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