Games I (Regretfully) Played: Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Platformer
1 Player, with a local multiplayer mode
 System: Wii U
Developer: Monkey Bar Games
Year of Release: 2013
Played: July 29th, 2014

There's something you need to know about me, and more specifically my friend. We really really love Black Manta. You know. The Aquaman villain? And you can fuck right off if you're one of those unfairly judgmental bastards you laugh Aquaman off because all you ever bothered to watch was Superfriends and let that campy show cloud your vision. Anyway, Black Manta is a creature who thrives off hatred. In all of his incarnations you can depend on one thing to remain true, his absolute hatred of Aquaman. He gladly murdered Aquaman's family, got killed himself and was briefly brought back to life, and what did he do? He visited Aquaman just to ask how his wife and kid were doing. Right bastard sort of person we're talking about here. Most of his actions are derived strictly out of spite for someone (usually Aquaman).

So why am I talking about Black Manta? Well, aside from being a far more interesting subject than this ghastly game (pun not intended, but I'm fine with it), spite is the only reason this game ever touched my life. After some easily interpreted as rude comments on my friend's backloggery about how this game might be up his alley due to how overly easy it was he finally picked it up when he saw it on clearance for 10 bucks. Most rational people would see this is a waste of money, even without knowing anything about this game. Most adults of a sane mind would have laughed and moved on, or more reasonably never bothered looking at the game in the first place. You don't know spite like I know spite first hand.

It's not even that this game is the worst thing ever or anything, it's competent. Graphically it's a little basic but it looks alright. Maybe some more detailed textures would spruce it up a bit, but it's fine. Honestly in the background you can see the old-school mazes are literally the streets in this new version of Pac-Man's world which I honestly thought was pretty neat. But graphics mean shit to me really.

Gameplay, again, isn't bad, it's just overly contrived and so "been there done that" it's not even funny. When I say this is a 3D platformer you've already got the picture painted perfectly in your head. It does nothing that hasn't been done before and honestly it feels lazy in a lot of ways. There are some new to Pac-Man power ups that give you various suits/abilities, but it's all just recycled stuff from far superior games. There's a lizard power that lets you swing from rods, there's a bouncy power that lets you... bounce, a rock power that makes you huge and destroy any enemies you come across. Nothing original, nothing to call it's own.

The biggest problem is how easy it is. The thing that killed us the most was either not paying attention due to the state of doldrums this game reduced us to, or from falling to our death due to awkward controls. The controls are fine, but the camera can be a little off sometimes and in a 3D space a good camera is key. I assume anyone who reads this has played a fair number of games so I don't feel explaining this is necessary. It just happens in lazily slapped together 3D platformers.

What else is there to say? I mean originally I was just going to make this a joke post consisting solely of "This is shit." and after the jump just asking "What else did you expect just look at that nose!" There is some truth to that, look at how much of an asshole Pac-Man looks like now. And Clyde, what did they do to you. God damn. The plot and new character designs are horrendous. Why do so many companies they get away with making shit under the pretense that "it's for kids, no one will care." I care. Not even because I give a shit about Pac-Man, but the target audience still deserves better than this.

Then again I've never been a massive Pac-Fan as it were. This wasn't going to win me over. I only played half the levels through the first half of this game, and my buddy who bought the game actually went on to finish it off. Spite is truly one of the strongest forces on this Earth in the hands of the right men. Kudos to you sir, you stupid crazy bastard.