Pac-Man World 2

Pac-Man World 2 (パックマンワールド2, Pakkuman Wārudo Tsū) is a video game by Namco for Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, and Microsoft Windows released in 2002. The Xbox version is not compatible with Xbox 360. Like the original Pac-Man World, the player controls the character of Pac-Man in a 3D platform game.

Story

Back in medieval times the evil ghost king Spooky constantly terrorized Pac Land and the Pac People. To stop him, the Great Wizard Pac created a potion to transform five ordinary fruit into magical Golden Fruit.Then, a brave, young Knight named Sir Pac A Lot battled Spooky and used the Golden Fruit to seal him under a tree in the center of Pac Village. In the present time the Ghost Gang pick the Golden Fruit off of the tree without knowing Spooky was under it. Spooky escaped and commanded the gang to follow him in a plan to eliminate all of the Pac People. The Ghosts agree and steal the Golden Fruit. The next morning, Professor Pac tells Pac Man to retrieve the stolen Golden Fruit and imprison Spooky again or else Pac Land will be doomed. Pac Man travels through all four regions of Pac Land and across the ocean to Ghost Island. He defeats the four Ghost Gang members who use four machines and a submarine to try and kill Pac Man and gets all five Golden Fruit along the way. When he arrives at the Ghost Bayou on Ghost Island he meets the Wormwood; the evil brother of the Golden Fruit Tree, and he goes through a maze that Wormwood had created to stop him from defeating Spooky. Pac Man makes it through the maze and as a result, Wormwood's fire inside of his hollow mouth of his trunk burns out and he dies. Pac Man then goes back to Pac Village and Spooky challenges him to a fight by using a magic staff to create a tornado that lifts the Golden Fruit Tree up in the air with he and Pac Man on the ground surrounding it. Spooky loses the fight and is sealed back under the Golden Fruit Tree. The game ends with Pac Man getting congratulated by the people in Pac Village, and Chomp Chomp eating the Ghost Gang because he overhears them planning to free Spooky again.

Gameplay

The player begins with six lives instead of four. The game has 25 levels and 16 Galaxian mazes in six different environments. The plot involves Pac-Man finding five golden fruits that were stolen by ghosts. These fruits were vital to his town. Pac-Man sometimes must fight and defeat enemies in order to progress. At the end of each area is a boss. The boss is always a ghost in a giant machine (the fifth machine holds all four ghosts), excluding the final boss. There are many items to collect in this game including fruit, the traditional dots, and tokens. Each of the levels has eight tokens, as well as a single bonus token for achieving 100% completion on the level and another bonus token for completing the time trial. Because there are 19 non-boss levels, and because the Pac-Village doesn't have a time trial, the player has to beat every part of the game with 100% completion except for possibly the last level if you accumulate 189 tokens. Galaxians, which show up once in most non-boss levels, transport Pac-Man into a 3D maze, akin to the classic arcade games. Not all levels contain all of the collectible items, nor do they contain the same number of each.

The tokens unlock old Pac-Man incarnations in the arcade in Pac-Village. Critics have described these games as "perfect emulations".^[1] These unlockable "emulations" are Pac-Man, Pac-Attack (The updated version from the Japanese Namco Anthology 2), Pac-Mania, and Ms. Pac-Man, unlockable in that order. Also unlockable is a jukebox, which enables the player to listen to the game's soundtrack, as well as a gallery of concept art. However, the GBA version doesn't have any arcade games, even though it lists them in its copyrights when loaded.

In GameCube version, graphics are a bit polished from the PS2 version due to the GC's superior anti-aliasing techniques and 8-pass bump mapping. Also, the game in GameCube version is essentially identical to its PS2 counterpart with only one noticeable discrepancy; ghosts no longer kill you upon contact, rather, damage is isolated to the loss of one health unit. Also in the PC and Xbox versions of the game the map music and file selection music is The Bear Basic's music instead of the Pac-Village theme.

Time trials

After completing any non-boss level, the player can attempt a time trial. The goal is to work through the level as quickly as possible after hitting the stopwatch at the beginning. Various clocks have been scattered throughout the level where items used to be. Collecting these clocks allows the player to recover the indicated number of seconds by stopping the clock; however, time clocks will not accumulate, sometimes making it better to skip a "2" clock less than two seconds after hitting a "4" clock. Unlike the standard game mode, the player must start the level over from the beginning if Pac-Man dies at any point in the time trial.

Reception

The GameCube version of Pac-Man World 2 has an average score of 73.83% on GameRankings. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions each have an average score of 68.18% and 67.69% respectively.^[2] The GameCube version became a Player's Choice title, the PlayStation 2 version became a Greatest Hits title and the Xbox version became a Platinum Hits title. The game also has a score of 8.0 on GameSpot for the PS2 version, a 7.9 for the Gamecube version, and a 7.5 for the Xbox version. The game's camera system received criticism, but the musical score was praised.^[1]

The Player's Choice edition of the GameCube version included Pac-Man Vs. as a bonus pack-in in North America. Also for North America in 2008, Pac-Man World 2, along with Pac-Man World 3 and Pac-Man World Rally, were included in a 3-pack called Pac-Man Power Pack for the PlayStation 2.

References