| Pac'N Roll review |
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Like many other DS games, Pac’N Roll initially impresses solely because it works. You slide the stylus over Pac-Man and he rolls in the same direction, you slide quickly and he rolls quickly. A tap in the centre slams on the brakes and a slide right to the edge of the screen activates a boost. The entire set of moves is controlled with the stylus and the screen, with d-pad and buttons reserved for camera control, and that is all you will ever need. Environmental obstacles like ramps, springs and conveyer belts add extra mobility to Pac-Man’s moves and extra costumes endow him with the ability to fly or sink under water but control is still handled in the same way. The simplicity of the control is almost instinctive, mostly because Pac-Man handles just like a real ball would. Since his momentum is subject to inertia and gravity it becomes second nature to predict where he will roll next if left untouched, how much force will be needed to roll him uphill and at what speed he will need to roll to make a long jump.
As well as the perfectly implemented control (unhindered by glitches we might add) there’s also a surprisingly good game to Pac’N Roll. Like the interface, things are kept simple to begin with: players must roll Pac-Man around a stage, making sure to avoid the ghosts, and collect a predetermined number of Pac-Dots to leave the level and move onto the next. When Pac-Man is within a certain distance of the dots they gravitate towards him so the player never has to be too precise and things never get fiddly (good call Namco). Just as in the original game, Pac-Man can also consume Power Pellets and turn the tables on the ghosts. If he’s unlucky to be captured by a ghost he loses small amounts of health until the player flicks the ghost off the touch screen. Boss battles, at the end of each world, are fought in much the same way but Pac-Man must collect three Power Pellets before Golvis, the boss ghost, becomes vulnerable.
As expected the complexity of levels increases with each passing world and Pac-Man will soon find himself having to deal with moving platforms, lava pits, armoured ghosts, ghosts in cars(!) and all manner of other dangerous obstacles. By the fourth or fifth world the player will need to have honed their platforming skills to perfection as the level design kicks the difficulty up a notch and the gameplay becomes much more like Mario 64 than Marble Madness. Despite this steep increase in difficulty towards the end, Pac'N Roll doesn’t have that many levels and most will beat the main game over a weekend. Longevity is increased by the smart unlockables though. There are no crummy art galleries or “making of”s here: every unlockable (found by collecting hidden gems in the main game) awards an extra level to play. These take the form of Time Attacks, Challenge levels and even a great version of the original Pac-Man that spans both screens. Best of these are the challenge levels; essentially a remix of the main levels, each one starts Pac-Man off with a tough objective and a strict time limit to complete it in. Challenge 1-3, for example, requires Pac-Man to be rolled to the goal without touching any Pac-Dots. Needless to say, those dots are everywhere and it requires some nifty dexterity as well as a lot of forward thinking to make it to the end. While the main game can be completed very quickly, it can take months to find and finish all the challenge levels and this will keep many players coming back for more long after they would have grown bored if the challenges were not there.
Graphically Pac’N Roll isn’t especially impressive. Namco have done a good job of getting both screens to produce smooth 3D displays and there is evidence of good N64-style level design that is free from pop-up, but the detail is low and functional at best. Cut scenes divide every world but are little more than flat illustrations with a text-crawl on the bottom screen. It would have been nice for Namco to expand these with actual animations or even speech, as they feel particularly lazy here. Music and sound effects do their job but, again, they’re nothing special.
Ultimately though, it is the gameplay that Pac’N Roll must be judged on and it certainly delivers the goods in that department. The tight platform skills and stylus control go hand in hand to create an intuitive, instinctive experience that challenges and entertains in equal measures. Its premise and implementation make it feel both retro and new at the same time and result in yet another strong Pac-Man game that should sit well in anybody’s DS collection.
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System: Nintendo DS
Genre: Platformer
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
Version: European
Reviewed: Dec 2005
Writer: Ashley Day
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Pros:
- Brilliant control mechanism
- Good old platforming fun
- Excellent challenge modes
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Cons:
- Short story mode
- Simple graphics
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Pac'N Roll Video: 2.0MB
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