OMG Nintendo.com

Pac-Attack is a really boring "crap keeps falling" puzzle game that has very little to do with Pac-Man. It was originally released as Cosmo Gang: The Puzzle, an identical and equally boring arcade game with a different license attached. You rotate and drop pieces to make lines. Some pieces are ghosts. You can make Pac-Man pieces eat the ghost pieces to make combos and match more lines. It sucks a lot. That's my review.

Instead of wasting your time by trying to find more things to say about Pac-Attack other than the fact that it is in no way worth your money, I'm going to talk about Pac-Man 2, the greatest game ever created.

Pac-Man 2 doesn't give you direct control over Pac-Man. Instead, you guide him around his little Pac-Man town by using only vague suggestions. You can tell him to look and move in four directions, and you can make him interact with objects by pointing them out with a slingshot. You also have a supply of emergency power pellets you can toss Pac-Man's way, if things get too intense. These actions represent the limits of your direct interaction with Pac-Man. If ever there was such a thing as an "action/point-and-click-adventure," Pac-Man 2 would be it.

Here, check it out. See, the first level of the game charges you with finding some milk for your hungry baby.

The store's closed, though, so you need to tell Pac-Man to go to a nearby farm.

Make sure you avoid temptation from hot dog vendors and dangerous hot dog-eating cats along the way.

Once you get to the farm, you'll notice a cow and an empty bottle. Shoot the bottle to make Pac-Man reach for it.

It's too high for him to reach, though, so you'll want to shoot a nearby crow, who knocks the bottle down and scares the living crap out of Pac-Man in the process.

Tell Pac-Man to look at the bottle, and he'll do the rest. Mission complete!

The game's levels feature simple tasks with increasingly convoluted solutions, and you'll regularly have to put Pac-Man's life at risk to get what you want. Pac-Man, naturally, isn't going to like the fact that you're getting him killed by angry dogs and killer bees on a regular basis (even though you have infinite lives, so frustration is never an issue), and that's where the most awesome thing about Pac-Man 2 comes into play -- Pac-Man can get totally pissed off at you and ignore everything you say.

Bruise him enough, and he'll either get really, really angry or really, really sad. He's not so much fun when he's sad, though, because all he'll do is mope around and act like a passive-aggressive dick. When Pac-Man's angry, though, every single point of interaction changes completely.

Take the music store, for example -- an area of the game that serves no purpose and is completely optional.

Tell Pac-Man to walk in when he's in a generally agreeable mood, and he might play a happy song on the piano, chat patiently with the clueless cashier, or smile as he plays a drum solo.

Make him mad, though, and he'll pound out a dark, angry song on the piano, break the drums by slamming his fists into them, and get yelled at by the clerk before fleeing in terror.

Pac-Man 2 is the closest any game has ever come to being an interactive cartoon. The overall gameplay goals feel more like suggestions than anything else, and much of the fun you'll have will come from optional sequences and moments where your own limited degree of interaction creates an entirely new and unexpected story.

Here's my personal favorite part, which I only found out about thanks to my friend Frank:

Oh no, Pac-Man's neighbor Lucy needs help moving her couch!

Don't worry, Pac-Man's on the case!

Oh, look, your good deed is rewarded with a section of the Ms. Pac-Man cartridge, which you can piece together to play an emulated version of Ms. Pac-Man at the local arcade! Hooray!

Man, Suzy sure looks happy. I better shoot her in the face with my slingshot.

Pac-Man is too busy doing his happy dance to notice or care that his neighbor is now screeching her head off and crying uncontrollably.

He dances for a good ten seconds while Lucy screams for medical attention.

This part -- the precise second when Pac-Man snaps out of his dance and realizes what you've done to his poor little girl neighbor -- just might be my favorite moment in video gaming.

It doesn't really come across in screenshots, but the fact that you (as yourself, and not an on-screen character) can totally ruin what would otherwise be a happy sequence of events makes Pac-Man 2 an incredible, unmissable experience.

Unfortunately, you won't be playing Pac-Man 2 this week. Instead, you're getting Pac-Attack, a warmed-over Tetris ripoff that didn't even have Pac-Man in it to begin with. Pac-Attack has been included in multiple retro collections and is now on the Virtual Console, while Pac-Man 2 has never been rereleased in any form, and will likely be passed over on the Virtual Console as well.

I think I finally understand how Earthbound fans feel. Well, except for the sociopathic tendencies.

The thing is, Earthbound and Super Mario RPG -- and other supposed underdogs with massive mainstream fanbases -- will eventually be released on the Virtual Console if people whine enough.

Nobody's going to beg and scream for Pac-Man 2, though.

• << prev
• next >>