![]() Rather, the new version - available as a free update for those who already own it on console - adds a few extra bits and pieces while keeping the core game experience just as it's always been. Well, it's not a completely new game, though the "Plus" edition does mark its first appearance on PC platforms via Steam. ![]() If you played Pac-Man CE DX back in 2010, you already know all this, of course, and you're probably wondering what that little plus sign at the end of the title indicates. Alternatively, you can use the "Ghost Combo" mode to test how many ghosts you can successfully chomp in one go before a Power Pellet's effects wear off. Fortunately, the game provides a number of "time attack" modes which prioritize quickly completing mazes over scoring as many points as possible, and these provide a helpful means of learning the layouts a little at a time before applying them to the 5- or 10-minute score attack modes that provide the game's main, insanely addictive draw. Because they were always in the same, predictable locations, it became possible to calculate an "optimum" route through the game's maze layouts, though actually successfully executing that optimum route became more and more difficult as the game accelerated to speeds '80s arcade game makers could only dream of. The simple addition of the sleeping ghosts had a huge impact on the way you had to play Pac-Man CE DX. Scoring highly in Pac-Man CE DX was a matter of deliberately building up this trail to be as long as possible, then unleashing a Power Pellet to gobble up as many as you could in rapid succession, the screen exploding in a shower of disembodied ghost eyes flying off the screen as Pac-Man chomped his way to victory. Its biggest change to the formula was the addition of "sleeping" ghosts scattered around the ever-changing maze layouts passing close by them would cause them to wake up and start following Pac-Man in an ever-lengthening rainbow-colored trail. ![]() Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (hereafter Pac-Man CE DX) was a masterclass in how to modernize an arcade classic: it kept the original gameplay intact while simultaneously incorporating features that simply wouldn't have been possible on the hardware of 1980. Of all the adaptations that remain at least reasonably true to the original game, two of the finest are surely 2007's Pac-Man Championship Edition, which made the game a timed score-attack affair, and its 2010 follow-up Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. Indeed, the Wikipedia entry listing all the Pac-Man games throughout history includes no fewer than 51 games (not including compilations) that either focus on or feature Pac-Man and/or his family at one point or another - though many of these games radically deviated from the original formula of eating all the dots in a maze while avoiding the unwanted attentions of four ghosts. That doesn't mean that it's perfect, however, nor does it mean that people have been happy to leave it alone since that time. ![]() Pac-Man is one of those titles that still plays well today despite the fact it originally came out in 1980. Some classic games age better than others. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team. This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. Price$9.99 ($14.99 for All You Can Eat edition).Also available onXbox 360, PlayStation 3.
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