Pac Man All Stars - PC

I've had this game half a day and can already tell I don't like it. It's boring, unoriginal, uninnovative. Pac-Man is set loose from his maze to eat pellets in a hap-hazard course in which he is difficult to control. The graphics are fine, yeah, but the guy is a SPHERE! I expected more out of the course.There are two ways to play - with the computer or with other humans. Both use the same boring settings and levels.Waste of money.

Thanks!

I mean, seriously. That miserable board game on the Gamecube should have been "Pac-Man All-Stars" since it has characters outside the Pac-Man body of work! The reason why I believe Pac-Man Fever is a more appropriate title for this game is because it is practically that. A Pac-Man Fever. More particularly, a Pac-Man goose chase! Pac-Man All Stars features the dot-muncher, his wife and son, and Professor Pac on a quest to go crazy and eat as many dots as humanly possible.All you do is maneuver your character with the arrow keys, and he/she will be moving around the screen-filled map. The goal is, of course, to get the higher score through eating all the dots on the field. There are objects you can use as either slight power-ups or ways to spawn some more dots nearby. While the action may seem repetitive, it honestly hits home and stays engaging and fun, like how a good arcade-style game maintains its playability. The game may not be as compelling as, say, Pac-Man: Adventures in Time, but it's still well worth picking up, especially if you want to play with friends!

Pac-Man All-Stars is the latest game in a classic series that peaked in the early 1980s. While the popularity of the early Pac-Man games has yet to be surpassed, there have been several recent attempts to modernize the classic pellet-chomping hero.All-Stars tries to break new ground by using elements from the classic Pac-Man games in a completely different style of game. The game includes a single-player mode and supports up to four players in multiplayer mode over a LAN or on a single computer. Initially, you can take control of one of several characters from the arcade games, including Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Junior, and Professor Pac-Man, and other characters can be unlocked by successfully completing the game's storyline.But rather than guiding the character through a series of mazes, you enter a series of 3D arenas to engage in a feeding frenzy that is vaguely reminiscent of the classic board game Hungry Hungry Hippos. Each level begins with one character in each corner of the screen. A new batch of pellets then appears, and the characters begin their frenzied munching to see who can accumulate a set amount of points first or who can get the most points in a set amount of time. Once a group of pellets has been gobbled, a few flowers appear in different parts of the arena, and when a character eats a flower, another flight of pellets appears.While this free-for-all pellet gobbling forms the backbone of the game, there are a few elements tossed in to add some variety. In addition to a few pieces of fruit worth different numbers of points, Pac-people can eat the occasional power-up that gives them special abilities for a limited amount of time. Some power-ups, like the magnet or the super speed, make your pellet gobbling more efficient, while others, like the stun bomb and the thieves' mask, help you by putting the other players at a disadvantage temporarily.

Well, lets start off by being fair first and foremost--I've seen some really negative reviews on this game so far. And in all honesty, I was a bit disappointed with it myself, but I've heard it called a complete chalk-off in the franchise, and I don't think that's fair to it at all. True, this is a game the developers could have done allot more with. They could, and should have spent a little more time refining the controls. Rumblepad support would have been nice too. Next are the game's arenas. The arenas it has are ok, and it does have unlockables, but you still don't get enough up front. Moreover, the arenas it has which aren't initially locked seem somewhat plain, and lacking design imagination. It's a fairly tough game, and can get repetitive quickly. It would have been nice if the developers had given the various Pacs different abilities, and characteristics too, but this would simply have been too much effort to put into a low budget value title--all the Pacs have more or less the same abilities with no distinctions between them.Despite these aforementioned complaints, Pac-Man All Stars remains a reasonably fun game. It is also a PC exclusive--so far as I know, this installment in the Pac-Man franchise appeared on no other platform. The game does have good looking graphics, supports gamepads, and supports a modest selection of fairly high resolutions. It also scores brownie points for having modest system specs, and seeming stable and well behaved--rarely if ever crashing, or exhibiting framerates issues, or graphical anomalies (short of some mild clipping in some levels). Also, please be aware that this game will require an older type, DirectInput gamepad (like the Logitech Dual Action, or Rumblepad 2 for example) for full, and proper gamepad support. Even if the game will recognize an X-Box 360 controller for Windows, there is a good chance it will not behave correctly since the game pre-dates, and therefore does not support Xinput.Overall, I'm going to give Pac-Man All Stars a good grade with minor dings. Deciding whether or not you will be happy with this game depends quite heavily on what you expect from it. The developers have tried to do something different here. Pac-Man All Stars offers an arena-like experience with new environments as opposed to another maze game. The game also contains some unlockable bonus modes, and characters (but no Super Pac-Man--what's up with that?), and multiplay via 4 player hotseat, or over internet or LAN. Also found bundled in a 3 pack alongside "Pac-Man: Adventures in Time", and "Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze" from some years back which amazon still carries (and can still occasionally be found in bargain bins, and second hand outlets), Pac-Man All Stars finds appeal as a decidedly offbeat entry in the Pac-Man franchise (perhaps being a loose mimic of games like Rayman Arena for example?), and with hardcore Pac-Man fans, but there have certainly been better Pac-Man titles.UPDATED EDIT: Pac-Man All Stars is Win Vista/Win 7 compatible.