Pacman feels like a starters concept overstretched into a full sized game relying on the franchise name and fame
The plotline is very simple, it's Pacmans 20th anniverary and everyone's coming over for his special suprise party but they all get kidnapped and it's up to pacman to save all six characters. So off goes our hero on his quest to brave his braun and win. Stages are usually comprised of jumping along moving platforms, defeating enemies, rico-styled jumping, swimming, eating pacdots, fending ghosts, pushing levers, finding keys or powerups, and running through a mazes. It all sounds familiar to what you've played before and unfortunately, its fun will disintegrate away after the first five or so levels because there's not allot thats new to come along afterwards, just a mesh of obstacles with dressed up themes like space, pirate land, caveman era, etc. It also feels like playing the game doen't really give you a sense of accomplishment; if you are the collector you will try to get as many points and items as possible so that you can head to the bonus stages to get more points. Or play a little mat-em-up game with the fruit you have gathered to increase pacmans number of lives and score, the only issue is that all you get is the opportunity to raise your highscore, no real reward for going to the top of the mountain does feel a bit, missing. Pacman brings along at least some powerups, but most feel a little to similar to other iconic characters, pacman can rev roll which looks and feels similar to sonics own speed roll, he can shoot at enemies with his pac-dots like marios own fireballs, there are a couple others but can see the similarities.
The camera itself, isn't meant for this game, it shows pacman from a 2D dimension but the worlds err... gaunlets that Pacman works through are 3D, which makes judging your distance extremely challenging, especially when you're trying to get across areas with moving platforms, enemies, that require heinous precision and timing (which are quite frequent). Besides yelling at the camera for providing a super akward angle of perception that lead to half your lives you are going to not believe the learning curve that comes along, the second and third boss battles are some of the toughest boss encounterings I have ever seen. It's so unbelievable to face off against bosses that become nearly impossible to destroy and then somehow have to face an easier boss. Its like you had to climb up a huge mountain in your way and then it actually becomes a nice, easy climb, WTF?!
In terms of graphics, Pacman boosts some awesome looking levels, with nice lighting and particle effects, bold colours, no tearing of textures or framerate issues, it may become a bit too cutesy with it's smiles and sunshine attitude but it is what it focuses on.
The audio is full of tracks that will fall on deaf ears, its mostly overcharmed tunes that are backed up by good tech support and good sound effects.
Pacman will keep you ocuppied for a while, it has 20 levels that all averaged should take about an hour to complete each plus loads of similar maze (including the original) should provide about 25 or so hours before you either win or outright stop playing. In the end, it's hard to recommend Pacman, theres lots more fun and lots less frustration available elsewhere, fans may be able to overlook its flaws for a while, but I was having the most fun when I finally got past a tough level or a big, bad boss, but there's allot of grief to go through to get to that...