Pac-Man Game Review

One of the most recognized great classics of the arcade games. Most of you have played this game and it is very addictive once you start playing. Developed and released by Namco in 1980. The game’s development began on April 1979 by Toru Iwatani, which it has been a great impact in the game industry, very influential, the greatest video games of all time.


Gameplay

The player’s objective is to control pac-man throughout the maze as he collects the dots spread throughout the maze. Not only that, the player must avoid getting caught by the colored ghosts who are chasing him around. The player has only three lives, if all lives are wasted, it's game over. The player has to obtain as much points as he/she can obtain by collecting the dots, the fruits and by eating the blue ghosts.

This is not how it originally looks like,
it's just an visual of the game mechanics 

The ghosts can only turn blue when you collect an energizer which are located near the corners of the maze. There are 4 energizers on each level, if collected, the ghosts would immediately turn blue and start to move away from you back to the ghost’s base where they first come out at the start of the game. You must act fast. Now that you have the advantage to catch them and they move slightly slower than usual. The first ghost you catch will give you 200 points, the second ghost will be 400 points, the thier will be 800 and the fourth will be 1600 points. The cycle starts again at 200 when an energizer is collected. There is a certain time limit you must catch the ghost and when the time is almost over, they would start to flash white and blue, so you must act fast. As you advance through more stages, the time to catch the ghosts would be shortened. As you pass level there would be some fruits that will appear in the map. If collected, they can earn you up to 100 to 5,000 points!

Points visual

It is said that the enemies which are known as the “ghosts” or “monsters” have different personalities according to their colors. Toru Iwatani made these arrangements so that the game wouldn’t be impossible or become boring to play. Each of the enemies have their names and their rolls or personalities which are:



Pink           Pinky            Aims to position himself in front of pac-man.
Cyan          Inky             Aims to position himself at a similar spot compared to                                        Pinky.
Red            Blinky          Simply chases pac-man.
Orange      Clyde           Tends to move randomly based on the others functions.





Aesthetics & Sound

The graphics and animation are quite simple. The game has a black background, the lines which forms the maze are a dark blue color. You can dificitate pac-man with the enemies by their shape and color. Pac-Man is round and yellow, when he opens is this mouth it forms a “v” shape. The enemies look like ghosts and their colors are, cyan, red, orange and pink. There are no 3D effects in the video game, allow the assets are 2D shapes. It has it’s own theme song which is very characteristic of the game and some basic sounds with pac-man eats the ghosts, opens and closes it’s moth, when the energizer is collected and when pac-man is eaten by the enemy.

Overall

Anyone is welcomed to play this classic game, I assure you it’s very entertaining. Maybe for those who are from the younger generation won’t see it as appealing as those who are from generation X, but anyway it is still one of the most classic and recognized games worldwide. I’ve played this game before several times when is was bored so I used to search up the game in the internet and there will be many website the provides you to have an experience of the game and if you are one of the few who’s never played the game, you must play it, I recommend it, at least to have knowledge and build up your experience.

Here give it a try:  Pac Man Classic Arcade Flash Game