Pac Man has infestedso many games, ate so many ghosts, and has been made a classic of video games that it's ironic and actually interesting that Namco would have a design such as Pac Pix. In Pac Pix you draw Pac Man, the catch to it is, is that whatever you draw for Pac Man, is what he becomes. He can be big, small, bizarre, and wel most of the time he's just the 3rd one, bizarre, especially if you have bad penmanship. You then move Pac Man around in the playfield which is awfully boring, a simple white sheet of paper that you draw lines in the direction he goes. Easy enough right? Not really. It gets challenging and this is a surprisingly tough game. The boss fights make you think and are actually done pretty well. You can also draw arrows and later bombs which you have to ignite these bombs to a fire using your stylus, everything in this game uses the stylus. As you progress, you have to use an arrow to hit the fire switch to turn it on. Again using the stylus. These small puzzles actually get in the way more than anything since theres a time limit and only so many pac man you can have. When going into the top of the screen, you can only go in this upside down U, which is pretty bland and every now and then, enemies can be found up there. You have to eat so many ghosts before the time runs out. Now that I've said the basics, lets talk about the story, which is the most forced and exaggerated story I've seen in a while. A bottle of ink was dropped onto a book and Pac Man was going to stop the ghosts from taking over (how lame) and of course, right at the last second he got brought into the book, which is why you have these boring white sheets of paper to look at. The story is, like I said, ultraforced. It's pretty much and excuse to draw Pac Man and have him run around and eat ghosts. The core design can be fun at times and I actually had a laugh or two when my Pac Man's mouth was like this claw and was so mutated it could only be classified as "IT". This is all very cool and is where the graphics really shine. Apart from that though, it's pretty boring although your enemies are detailed enough, nothing special, but compared to the rest of the presentation, it isn't too bad. The boss fights are actually a highlight. They do make you think, some you have to draw a Pac Man big enough to eat them whole, others you have to use arrows and bombs to send them away, and it's a nice change of pace. A big design flaw to the boss fights is that the game never explains how to beat them, so your forced to figure out how. Luckily it never gets to complicated. Another factor that really goes against Pac Pix is the fact that you have to restart the chapter all over again if you get a game over screen. You don't do the level over, the entire chapter. This is extremely frustrating if you got past a tough level but now have to do it all over again plus the other levels in that chapter. The game has 60 levels with 5 levels in 12 chapters with a boss fight/extra level on each one. Theres 2 different books, book 1 and book 2. Book 1 is your campaign and after you beat it book 2 is pretty much the same just enemies move faster, if this game wasn't tough enough. Pac Pix's music is disappointing. Theres no real music and the "colorful sounds of Pac Man eating his ghosts" is generic. The game just has terrible sound and music, hope you have an MP 3 player or CD player near by. You probably won't be playing Pac Pix to much, as a matter of fact, with the forced story, boring gameplay, and poor execution, you won't want to finish the game at all. With no multiplayer it's worth a rental at the most, wait don't even bother renting it, it just isn't fun.
There are some horrors in which there is simply no escape. Thy name is Pac-Pix for the DS. It's a game which the true horror lies in the fact in you actually might've spent money or, heaven forbid, TIME on this monstrosi... Read Full Review
This game is cool at first but becomes a repeat again and again,the mission is the same thing eat ghosts, sure there is other things like draw an arrow to open a door to reach a ghost or use a bomb but the game over use... Read Full Review
