Pac-Man World

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Pac-Man World

Developer(s)	Namco
Publisher(s)	Namco
Release date(s)	September 30, 1999 (PS) November 17, 2004 (GBA)
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone (E)
Platform(s)	PlayStation, Game Boy Advance

Pac-Man World was released on the 20th anniversary of the creation of Pac-Man. It is a 3D based free roaming platformer for the PlayStation released on September 30, 1999. It was ported over five years later for the Game Boy Advance on November 17, 2004.

1 Modes
2 Storyline
3 Gameplay
4 Levels
5 Trivia
6 Sequels
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Modes

In Quest Mode, Pac-Man explores the six levels of Ghost Island to save his friends
In Maze Mode, chase Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde in a variety of 3-D maze environments.
Classic Mode included the original Pac-Man game within it.

[edit] Storyline

Pac-Man arrives home on his 20th birthday (the game was released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the original Pac-Man in arcades) only to discover that his friends and family -- Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac, Pac-Jr, Professor Pac, Chomp Chomp the dog and Pooka (character from Dig Dug) -- have been kidnapped by the evil Toc-Man, a giant robotic Pac-Man impersonator created by Orson bent on stealing Pac-Man's identity. Pac-Man sets off for Ghost Island and works to free them, each of whom is held captive in one of the different themed worlds (see Levels section below).

[edit] Gameplay

The game was a standard 3D platformer that played heavily into the history of the character; every non-boss level featured a maze that played by the rules of the original game (though Pac-Man's health pie was still present, allowing the player to survive being touched by ghosts up to three times), every level was littered with dots, fruits and ghosts, much of the music was modified from early entries into the series (one of the common themes in all the levels is the intermission music from Pac-Man modified according to the theme of the level) and of course the original Pac-Man game was available for play from the menu screen.

In addition, Pac-Man had been given a handful of standard platform manoeuvres, including a "butt-bounce", reminiscent of Mario and the Rev-Roll, reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog. Also, he'd gained the ability to use the dots offensively, throwing them at non-ghost enemies.

The level format was fairly straightforward; each world consisted of three or four levels. Introduction. The first level in a world would introduce a new technique or enemy type. The second and third would require use of that technique to complete, and couldn't be completed without it. The fourth level of each world was a boss battle requiring unique gameplay or puzzle-solving to defeat.

The second levels also included a key that, while not essential to complete the game, was required to free whichever of Pac-Man's friends was held prisoner in the third level. Every freed character would then appear to aid Pac-Man in the final battle against Toc-Man.

[edit] Levels

When each level is completed at 100%, a high score is calculated from the collection of points from fruit, power pellets and enemies destroyed. Each level additionally has a special maze to access, play and complete. Traditionally, the last level of each world is the 'boss' level.

No.	Area/World	Level Name
1	Pirate (Pooka freed)	Buccaneer Beach
2		Corsair's Cove
3		Crazy Cannonade
4		HMS Windbag
5	The Ruins (Chomp Chomp freed)	Crisis Cavern
6		Manic Mines
7		Anubis Rex
8	Space (Professor Pac freed)	Space Race
9		Far Out
10		Gimme Space
11		King Galaxian
12	Funhouse (Baby Pac freed)	Clowning Around
13		Barrel Blast
14		Spin Dizzy
15		Clown Prix
16	Factory (Pac-Jr. freed)	Perilous Pipes
17		Under Pressure
18		Down The Tubes
19		Krome Keeper
20	Mansion (Ms. Pac-Man freed)	Ghostly Garden
21		Creepy Catacombs
22		Grave Danger
23		Toc-Man's Lair

[edit] Trivia

Pac-Man's house number is 7650, 765 is Japanese word play for Namco
If you score over 1,000,000 points as your total score, you get awarded with a magic key. This allows you to open any door in the game without having the correct fruit and you can use it for unlimited times.
Toc-Man's name backwards is Namcot - which is the original company name of Namco.

[edit] Sequels

There was a port to the Game Boy Advance made in 2004, but many features were left out of the game, such as Maze Mode and the original Pac-man unlockable. There was a true sequel, Pac-Man World 2, released on February 24, 2002. It is available on the PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox and Game Boy Advance and has multi-player unlike its predecessor. The title was released later on some platforms though.

The latest game in the series is Pac-Man World 3 was released on all the consoles which Pac-Man World 2 was on (except Game Boy Advance) and also onto Sony's hand-held, the PlayStation Portable. It was released on November 1, 2005 on to every console except the PSP and Nintendo DS. The PlayStation Portable version was released on December 6 and the Nintendo DS version was released on February, 2006.

There is also a spin-off called Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness.