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Pac-Pix Review
Written by Modojo Staff on Tuesday, April 26, 2005
You'll be surprised at how you'll laugh at some of your bizarre Pac creations.
An easy game, though the ranking system and unlockable cards try to make up for it.
I'm terrible at drawing. I can draw a mean Sonic the Hedgehog and have dabbled in recreating Link in many a notebook, but I'm no Michelangelo. However, task me with drawing the ultimate Pac-Man... and I still suck. Thankfully, Namco's latest Nintendo DS release, Pac-Pix, looks past my artistic limitations and allows me to draw Pac-Man any way I want... and oh, what hideous creations I've made! It's all for a good cause, though, as Pac-Pix proves to be a very enjoyable time.
The story's like this: ghosts like Pinky and Blue have managed to take over the world's books, and it's up to Pac-Man to defeat them all with his magic pen. But just before he's about to take out the last set of ghosts, he's sucked into a book, leaving you with the magic pen and the goal to rid all the ghosts in that book. Isn't that always the case? Anyway, with your drawing skills at hand and a few cool techniques, it's up to you to save the world from the book-polluting minions.
Following the increasing trend of stylus-only Nintendo DS games, Pac-Pixis a deceptively simple game that asks you to draw a Pac-Man and direct him towards appetizing ghosts. You do this by waving your stylus in a way to create Pac-Man large and small, and sometimes extremely ugly! Using walls and quick thinking, the Pac-Man you create will make quick work of his enemies.
And if you don't think one Pac-Man is enough, draw another! And another. You're allowed up to three Pac-Men on screen at one time, but be careful. You're limited to a certain number of Pac-Men per page (i.e. level) before you run out and it's game over.
As the game's chapters and books progress, new techniques will be unlocked for you to use against your enemies. One allows you to draw arrows that will stun your enemies, burst enemies from their bubbles floating on the top screen, or activating hard to reach switches. Another allows you to draw a bomb with a fuse that can take out large obstacles standing in between you and the ghosts you need to eat to clear the levels.
These new techniques are also mixed with some very sweet gameplay tricks. For example, it won't be long before you meet the Numboos, a set of ghosts with sequential numbers on their stomachs that need to be eaten in order. You'll also see things like mirrors that you can bounce arrows off of to get to tough switches or enemies on the top screen. There are even big bosses at the end of certain chapters that require you to apply everything you've learned up to that point.
In all, the variety shown in the game is well improved from the first version we ever played, which was back at E3 2004. But while the game is more varied than we thought it would be, it's also easy to complete the different pages and chapters. To be fair, though, scoring an A rank does require a good amount of skill with the game, and should keep perfectionists drawing for a long time to come.
And while the screenshots may not look jaw-dropping, Pac-Pix is a visually impressive game. You'll notice that each Pac-Man you draw will be different than the others, as expected. But instead of turning your drawings into a standard animated Pac-Man, life is given to your actual drawing. You'll see those strange looking Pac-Men you create move and chomp their way through the ghosts with every bit of personality you're able to give them in your rushed drawings.
The sound is also solid, with a couple of samples from the old school games interspersed with an up-tempo soundtrack. There are a few extras, too, such as collectable cards based on characters and items in the game. There's also a sweet Training mode where you can practice your drawing skills, and even find some surprises - try drawing a fluffy cloud and see what happens for an example.
Overall, Pac-Pix is a great amount of fun, despite it being a fairly easy game. Even though it's not the most challenging time you can have, it's a ton of fun that's guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Highly recommended, Pac-Pix is one of the best games you can find in the Nintendo DS library, artist or not.
