Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 is a 3D Platformer released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U in 2014. As with its predecessor from 2013, this game is based on the plot and characters of the computer-animated TV show of the same name, which in turn very loosely mirrored elements of the classic Arcade game. For those who never watched the animated show, this game looks and plays almost like something made by someone who had Pac-Man described to them, but never played it themselves.

The presentation here seems to be re-using assets from the first Ghostly Adventures game, and the result is a presentation that seems much the same, which is to say that it is technically good, with a 3D world and characters that have pretty good animation and an overall look that’s pretty polished. Having said that, many will likely be put off by the presentation here, as the character designs are the worst sort of market-tested trash made for children you can imagine, complete with cringe-worthy voices for the characters and a soundtrack that tries way too hard to be “cool” with its bombastic energy.

It seems that the developer has taken complaints about the prior game’s camera to heart, as this game switches to a completely-automated camera that the player cannot control at all. Ultimately, this was probably a smart choice – while the camera was the biggest issue in the previous game, here it’s decent enough and I don’t really have any major complaints.

Apart from that, and occasional 2D Platformer areas, the gameplay here is largely the same to the point where this feels a lot like a second bite at the apple, so to speak. It’s not bad, and in fact there are some elements here that are really good. But it will definitely feel extremely familiar to those who played the first game.

For those who didn’t play the first game, I’ll say that the gameplay, though only loosely related to anything gamers would recognize as Pac-Man, is actually pretty decent, with players working their way through largely linear 3D levels, chomping enemies and collecting pickups along the way. In particular I find it to be quite enjoyable when you get the opportunity to chain together ghost-chomping attacks one after another like a combo attack.

There is one flaw from the prior game that remains here though – aiming with special abilities still sucks, to the point where you may very well feel like you’re better off without those abilities if it wasn’t for the fact that the levels they’re acquired in outright need those abilities to progress.

In the end, while it still has a few issues, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 is a marked improvement over the prior game, fixing the biggest issue that game had – its camera. However, the other problem with aiming still remains, and the rest of the game feels so much like a retread that while it’s certainly an improvement over that game, I can’t very well recommend it to those who got the first game because it will feel like “more of the same”. If you’re considering just skipping over that game to play this, on the other hand? Yeah, I suppose it might be worth a try, though there are so many other great 3D Platformers out there that I can’t give it a very enthusiastic recommendation – you still likely have better options to play.

tl;dr – Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2 is a 3D Platformer based on the animated TV show of the same name that’s loosely based on the classic Arcade game. This game improves on the camera problems the first game had, though much of the rest of the game feels like a retread. This is not a bad 3D Platformer, but I think you can find better on Nintendo platforms.

Grade: C+

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