Introduction
If people ever gave out awards for silly things like "Game That Went Farthest Afield of the Original" Pac-Man 2 would be a serious contender, if not take the prize. In 1994 Namco decided to give their most popular franchise, Pac-Man, a complete facelift. With double digit bits to work with they decided just making Pac-Man look nicer was simply not enough. They put Pac-Man in a genre he'd never even known existed, the point and click adventure. I really have to hand it to Namco for having the sheer balls to do something so wildly different and take such a huge risk, it's something that is sadly lacking in big name IPs these days.
Videos
Episode 01, The New Adventures | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 02, Worst Neighbor Ever | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 03, A Thousand Ways to Die | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 04, City Life | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 05, Happy Hole | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 06, Poster Hot Dogs | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 07, Infinite Box Pizza | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 08, Pac-Knowledge | Youtube | Polsy |
Episode 09, Quantum Slingshot | Youtube | Polsy |
FINAL Episode, The Gum Monster! | Youtube | Polsy |
Characters
The big man himself, the grandaddy of protagonists, it's Pac-Man! He may have seemed like a pretty boring character back in the day but this game relies heavily on how Pac-Man interacts with his surroundings, so if you don't have a grasp of his character by the time we're done I don't think you ever will.
Not really a separate character, but they give him his own slide so who am I to judge? If you feed Pac-Man a super pellet he turns into Super Pac-Man, who is a completely original concept and in no way infringes on the copyrights of Detective Comics. When Super Pac-Man shows up he suddenly becomes fairly competent and is able to defeat the ghosts.
The titular protagonist of one of my favorite arcade games of all time, Ms. Pac-Man introduced cycling level designs and somewhat randomized enemy movements, among other changes. Ms. Pac-Man also featured something of a story, in which Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man meet, fall in love, and have a baby! Which brings me to:
Pac-Jr! He wears a baseball cap, high tops, and plays guitar. Y'know, 'cause 1994. His only purpose seems to be to entertain Pac-Man's next door neighbor, who, as near as I can tell, does not have any actual parents.
Rounding out the Pac-family is Pac-Baby, whose only real characteristic seems to be her inability to stop eating. And being a baby.
Enemies
The classic villains are back for more! Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde are masters of the inconvenient, showing up to thwart Pac-Man in his day-to-day errands time and time again. The dastards!
What's this? A villain that's not a ghost? Yes, folks, it seems there is a somewhat competent villain this time around, but for now they shall remain a mystery...
Let's not forget Pac-Man's arch-rival, the small stone! Believe me when I say this little guy will do more damage than the ghosts could ever dream.