Pac-Man Championship Edition | |
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Developer(s) | Namco Bandai Games |
Publisher(s) | Namco Bandai Games |
Director(s) | Tadashi Iguchi |
Producer(s) | Nobutaka Nakajima |
Designer(s) | Toru Iwatani |
Programmer(s) | Takashi Ōtsuka Yasumichi Onishi Hideki Harada |
Artist(s) | Masaharu Okada Hideki Tanaami Yoshikazu Komatsu |
Composer(s) | Junko Ozawa |
Series | Pac-Man |
Platform(s) | Xbox 360 iOS Android Maemo 5 PlayStation Portable Roku Nintendo Entertainment System |
Release | Xbox Live Arcade
|
Genre(s) | Maze |
Mode(s) | Single player |
Pac-Man Championship Edition [a] is a 2007 maze video game developed and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360. It has since appeared on several other platforms, including iOS, Android, and the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable as a PSP mini title available on the PlayStation Store. [1] [2] [3] [4] It is an HD reimagining of the original Pac-Man arcade game; players navigate Pac-Man through an enclosed maze, eating pellets and avoiding four ghosts that pursue him. Clearing an entire side of the maze of dots will cause a fruit item to appear, and eating it will cause a new maze to appear on the opposite side.
Development of Championship Edition was headed by director Tadashi Iguchi, alongside producer Nobutaka Nakajima and designer and the father of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, the original creator of Pac-Man — Championship Edition was the final game he designed. Unhappy with earlier attempts to remake Pac-Man for removing many of the common elements present in the original, the development team focused on taking the original concept and expanding on two core features: the game speed and new mazes, which they felt would be the best way to "modernize" it. Iguchi was not much of a Pac-Man fan, spending much of his time thinking about how hardcore Pac-Man fans would react to the game's new features and ideas. It was chosen to make the game feel like an arcade game, due to it being released for the Xbox Live Arcade service.
Backed by a large marketing campaign orchestrated by Microsoft and Namco Bandai, Pac-Man Championship Edition was well-received by critics. Publications commended the game for successfully translating the classic Pac-Man gameplay into a modern format, with its gameplay, soundtrack and online features also being praised. One critic labeled it as "the first true sequel to Pac-Man since Ms. Pac-Man ". However, some disliked the lack of a multiplayer mode and for reusing enemy movement patterns in the original. It was followed by two sequels; Pac-Man Championship Edition DX , and Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 .
Like the original Pac-Man, the basic game play of Pac-Man Championship Edition consists entirely of navigating Pac-Man through a maze, eating dots, power pellets and bonus items (such as fruits, keys, and other objects), and avoiding the four ghosts that roam the maze as well. If Pac-Man is caught by a ghost, the player loses a life. Eating a power pellet causes the ghosts to turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them and send them back to their home, where they re-emerge in their original form. An extra life is awarded after every 20,000 points earned.
However, there are several major differences from its original counterpart, making Pac-Man C.E. a faster paced game. Each maze is divided into two halves. Eating all the dots on one half causes a bonus item to appear on the other side, and eating the item causes a new maze to appear on the other half. Players can also collect additional power pellets to increase their powered up time and continue earning maximum points for eating ghosts. The game speed increases as the player scores points, and decreases when they lose a life. As opposed to levels, the game is played within a certain time limit, with players attempting to get the highest score possible.
The game features six modes: Championship, which is the basic five-minute mode, two ten-minute Challenge modes which affect the stage (such as increasing power pellet pickups or putting the maze in darkness) and three Extra modes (one five-minute and two ten-minute) featuring different mazes. The game also supports online leader boards.
The idea for the game that later became Pac-Man Championship Edition was conceived following the release of the original Pac-Man arcade game for the Xbox Live Arcade online service in 2006. [5] Namco Bandai Games producer Nobutaka Nakajima noticed how the classic Pac-Man gameplay took place on a tall, vertical screen, in drastic comparison to the widescreen HD television sets most consumers have, alongside its "very low-resolution, old-school gameplay." [5] With next generation video game consoles posing much more powerful hardware, the idea of a modernized remake of Pac-Man for HD televisions came into fruition. [5] Nakajima became the project's producer, assisted by director Tadashi Iguchi and designer Toru Iwatani, the original creator of Pac-Man. [5] Championship Edition was the last game that Iwatani designed. [6] When the game was being idealized, the development team focused on the question: "We have all of this new technology and hardware and power. [5] What would Pac-Man be like, taking this technology and putting it to the max?" [5]
Nakajima felt that most remakes and sequels to Pac-Man stray too far from what he considered "the fundamentals of what made Pac-Man so great." [5] With Championship Edition, he went back to the roots of the original to expand on its concept, while still keeping the game's core mechanics intact. [5] Iwatani wanted the game to keep the simplicity of Pac-Man, as he felt that is what made the game fun and compelling. [5] When the development team was discussing with Iwatani about the idea of the game, Namco Bandai was approached by Microsoft about a crossover promotional event centered around Pac-Man; [5] with this in mind, the team focused on making the idea of players playing together a focal point for the game, wanting it to be full of excitement and action. [5]
Iguchi claimed that the original Pac-Man was a success because of its "compelling" gameplay experience, and said that trying to improve on it was a difficult task. [5] A total of twenty different ideas were proposed, only one of which was approved by Iwatani and became the basis for the game. [5] With the original Pac-Man having already been done well in terms of its gameplay and design, Iguchi and the others stated that the only mechanics that could really be changed were the maze design and the speed of the game itself. [5] The staff targeted those ideas specifically during production, and experimented with ways to improve them. [5] When an idea was proposed, it was incorporated into the game and playtested to make sure if it was fun or interesting. Thanks to his background in designing arcade games during his time at Namco, specifically Pac-Man Arrangement for Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 (1996), Iguchi was able to polish the concept to what he envisioned players wanted out of the arcade original. [5] Microsoft had additional input on the project, requesting that the game have an arcade-like feel to it due to them wanting to release the game onto the Xbox Live Arcade service. [5] The development team also wanted Championship Edition to be appealing towards more "modern" players, those who had never played Pac-Man during its heyday. [5] Ideas such as the game increasing in speed as it progressed were added to draw in newer players. [5] Iguchi was not much of a Pac-Man fan, and had to look at the game from the perspective of a hardcore fan of the franchise while working on it. [5]
The game was originally released on the Xbox Live Arcade service on June 6, 2007. [7] The announcement of the game spurred more purchases of the Xbox 360 in Japan.[ citation needed ]Pac-Man C.E. is also available on a disc titled Xbox Live Arcade Compilation that is bundled with the Xbox 360 Arcade console bundle, as well as on the compilation package Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (in the latter however, it can't be accessed within NMVA itself; it must be accessed from the game library). Ports for iOS, J2ME, Android and PSP minis were released on December 10, 2009, middle of 2009, June 8, 2010 and December 1, 2010 respectively. [8] The follow-up Pac-Man Championship Edition DX was released on Xbox Live Arcade on November 17, 2010 and PlayStation Network on November 23, 2010. [9] [10] The original Pac-Man Championship Edition was ported to Nintendo 3DS as part of a retail game titled Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions in 2011. It is included in the downloadable game compilation Pac-Man Museum in 2014, and reappears in Pac-Man Museum+ , released in 2022.
On June 5, 2007, the first Pac-Man World Championship was held in New York City, which brought together ten competitors from eight countries to play the new Pac-Man Championship Edition just prior to its release on Xbox Live Arcade. The top two scorers, Robert Glashuettner of Austria and Carlos Daniel Borrego Romero of Mexico, competed for the championship in a single five-minute round. Borrego was named Pac-Man World Champion and won an Xbox 360 console, specially decorated with Pac-Man artwork and signed by Tōru Iwatani. [11] [12] A "demastered" version of Pac-Man Championship Edition that runs on real Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System hardware is included in the game compilation Namco Museum Archives Vol. 1 and physical editions of the Namcot Collection. [13]
Aggregator | Score |
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Metacritic | X360: 83/100 [14] iOS: 72/100 [15] |
Publication | Score |
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1Up.com | A [16] |
Computer and Video Games | 7/10 [17] |
Eurogamer | 7/10 [18] |
GameSpot | 7.9/10 [19] |
IGN | 8.4/10 [20] |
TeamXbox | 8.6/10 [21] |
TouchArcade | [22] |
X-Play | 5/5 [23] |
Pac-Man Championship Edition was well-received by video game publications, and is seen among the best games in the Pac-Man series. Critics felt that Namco Bandai successfully brought the core idea of the original into the modern era of video games. Joystiq called it "The first true sequel to Pac-Man since Ms. Pac-Man ." [24]
Pac-Man Championship Edition received mostly positive reviews by critics, with reviewers stating the gameplay was "fresh and exciting," [25] "one of the best 'exclusive' pieces of downloadable/casual entertainment available," [26] and that it was "nice to see a classic remade instead of simply repackaged." [27] Jared Rea of Joystiq called it "The first true sequel to Pac-Man since Ms. Pac-Man ." [28] Criticisms include a lack of a multiplayer mode, and an apparent relapse to patterns that had been in the original. The game's Metacritic aggregator score is 83. [14] The iOS port was criticised for its microtransaction strategy [29] while the Android port was criticised for poor controls. [30] IGN criticised the PSP mini version due to the absence of online leaderboards and its inferiority to its sequel. [31]
Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
Tōru Iwatani is a Japanese video game designer who spent much of his career working for Namco. He is best known as the creator of the arcade game Pac-Man (1980). In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze arcade video game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is a spin-off sequel to Pac-Man (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's wife, the player is tasked with eating all of the pellets in an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating the larger "power pellets" lets the player eat the ghosts, which turn blue and flee.
Pac-Man Vs. is a 2003 maze video game developed by Nintendo and published by Namco for the GameCube. In the game, one player takes control of Pac-Man, who must eat all of the pellets in the maze, while the others control the ghosts to try to catch them. The objective is to be the first to reach a set number of points, selected before the game begins. The player controlling Pac-Man uses the Game Boy Advance to play, while the others use the television to control the ghosts. The game requires the GameCube - Game Boy Advance link cable in order to play.
Super Pac-Man is a 1982 maze chase arcade game developed and published by Namco. It was distributed in North America by Midway, and is Namco's take on a sequel to the original Pac-Man; Midway had previously released Ms. Pac-Man, which Namco had little involvement with. Toru Iwatani returns as designer.
Namco Museum is a series of video game compilations developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment for home video game consoles. The first title in the series, Namco Museum Vol. 1, was released for the PlayStation in 1995. Entries in the series have been released for multiple platforms, including the Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and Xbox 360. the latest being Namco Museum Archives Vol. 2, released in 2020.
Pac-Man World is a platform video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation. Controlling Pac-Man, the player must complete each of the game's six worlds by collecting keys to free his captive family members, and reaching the end of each stage. The plot follows Pac-Man's enemies, the ghosts, crashing his 20th birthday and kidnapping his friends and family to bring them to their homeland of Ghost Island — with his birthday in ruins and his family in trouble, Pac-Man sets out to rescue them and defeat the ghosts.
Pac-Man is a video game series and media franchise developed, published and owned by Bandai Namco Entertainment, a video game publisher that was previously known as Namco. Entries have been developed by a wide array of other video game companies, including Midway Games, Atari and Mass Media, Inc., and was created by Toru Iwatani. The eponymous first entry was released in arcades in 1980 by Namco, and published by Midway Games in North America. Most Pac-Man games are maze chase games, but it has also delved into other genres, such as platformers, racing, and sports. Several games in the series were released for a multitude of home consoles and are included in many Bandai Namco video game compilations, The franchise contains 2 animated series and an upcoming film.
Pac-Mania is a cavalier perspective maze game that was developed and released by Namco for arcades in 1987. In the game, the player controls Pac-Man as he must eat all of the dots while avoiding the colored ghosts that chase him in the maze. Eating large flashing "Power Pellets" will allow Pac-Man to eat the ghosts for bonus points, which lasts for a short period of time. A new feature to this game allows Pac-Man to jump over the ghosts to evade capture. It is the ninth title in the Pac-Man video game series and was the last one developed for arcades up until the release of Pac-Man Arrangement in 1996. Development was directed by Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani. It was licensed to Atari Games for release in North America.
Galaga Legions is a 2008 twin-stick shooter video game developed and released by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360. It is the twelfth game in the Galaxian series, and the third developed for home platforms. The player controls a starship, the AEf-7 "Blowneedle", in its efforts to wipe out the Galaga armada. The objective of the game is to clear each of the five stages as quick as possible. Stages have a heavy emphasis on puzzle solving and chain reactions, which are necessary to clear out enemy formations. The Blowneedle has a pair of satellites at its disposal, and can place them anywhere on the screen to fend off enemies.
Namco Museum Virtual Arcade is a video game compilation developed and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360. It was released in North America in 2008 and in Europe and Japan in 2009. Part of its Namco Museum series, Virtual Arcade includes 34 titles; nine of these are Namco Bandai-published Xbox Live Arcade games, and the rest are arcade games that are only accessible through the disc. Players can access the Xbox Live Arcade games through their dashboard if the disc is in the console.
Pac-Man Battle Royale is a 2010 maze battle-royale arcade game in the Pac-Man series. Developed and published by Namco Bandai Games, it was made in celebration of Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary. The game sees up to four players control multi-colored Pac-Men as they try to compete to be the last Pac-Man standing.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is a 2010 maze video game published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, later ported to Steam, Android and iOS. It is the sequel to the 2007 game Pac-Man Championship Edition, which was the last game developed by series creator Toru Iwatani. The player controls Pac-Man as he must eat all of the dots in the maze while avoiding colored ghosts that pursue him. A bonus item will appear once the player has eaten all dots on one side of the maze, causing the layout to change. Several additions were made over the original, such as bombs that send all ghosts to the regeneration box and sleeping ghosts that will give chase when Pac-Man moves past them.
Namco Generations was a brand name created by Namco Bandai Games for modernized remakes of their older video games. It was introduced in 2010 in conjunction with Pac-Man Championship Edition DX for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Galaga Legions DX was the second game to use the brand, being released in 2011. Two other games were in production under the Namco Generations label, a Metro-Cross sequel named Aero-Cross and a remaster of Dancing Eyes, both of which were cancelled.
Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions is a 2011 video game compilation developed and published for the Nintendo 3DS by Namco Bandai Games. It contains six games from the company's Pac-Man and Galaxian franchises—Pac-Man (1980), Galaga (1981), Pac-Man Championship Edition (2007), Galaga Legions (2008), Pac-Man Tilt, and Galaga 3D Impact, the last two being unique games created exclusively for this collection. The collection also includes achievements, online leaderboards, and a trailer for the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures television series.
Galaga Legions DX is a 2011 twin-stick shooter video game developed and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is the sequel to Galaga Legions (2008), and is the fourteenth entry in the Galaxian series. The player controls the AEf-7 "Blowneedle" starship in its efforts to wipe out the Galaga forces before they destroy all of mankind. The objective is to clear each of the game's nine stages in the quickest time possible by destroying waves of enemies. The Blowneedle has a pair of satellites that can be pointed at enemies to shoot them down. New additions have been made to the core gameplay, such as a "slowdown" effect when the player is about to collide with an enemy.
Pac-Man Museum is a 2014 compilation video game for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows, developed by Mine Loader Software and published by Bandai Namco Games under the Namco label. It is a compilation of 9 Pac-Man games, with additional features such as achievements and online leaderboards.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is a maze arcade game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. An installment in the Pac-Man series, it was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on September 15, 2016; an updated version featuring an exclusive 2-player co-op mode, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus, was released for Nintendo Switch on February 22, 2018. It is a direct sequel to Pac-Man Championship Edition and the follow-up of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+.
Aero-Cross is an unreleased platform video game that was in development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 by Namco Bandai Games. It was intended as a modernized sequel to the arcade game Metro-Cross, and the third released under the Namco Generations series of video game remakes. Players control a runner through each level in an effort to get to the end stage goal before the timer runs out. Levels feature hazards that must be overcome, and there are also power-ups that grant player with different abilities, such as a speed boost or being able to glide over the level.
Pac-Man 99 was a maze video game with battle royale elements developed by Arika and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment for the Nintendo Switch. It was released through the Nintendo Switch Online service on April 7, 2021.
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