{"id":22639,"date":"2022-10-07T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T00:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=22639"},"modified":"2022-09-18T12:27:17","modified_gmt":"2022-09-18T12:27:17","slug":"my-pac-man-world-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/07\/my-pac-man-world-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"My Pac-Man World Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Pac-Man World: Re-Pac was recently released, and it\u2019s a remake of Pac-Man World, a 3-D platformer originally on the PSOne to celebrate Pac-Man\u2019s 20th<\/sup> anniversary.\u00a0 Pac-Man World may not be one of my favorite Pac-Man games, but I have a lot of special memories about it that I thought I\u2019d share with you in this blog.\u00a0 Plus my opinion on the remake, what has changed and stayed the same, etc.\u00a0 So grab a bowl of Pac-Dots and let\u2019s get chomping!<\/p>\n

So as many of you may know, I\u2019m a huge fan of Pac-Man. I\u2019d like to claim that I\u2019m probably the biggest Pac-Man fan in the world.\u00a0 That may not be true, but I\u2019ll say so anyway.\u00a0 If you think you\u2019re a bigger Pac-Man fan, please let me know!\u00a0 I\u2019d love to hear from a fellow Pac-Man freak.\u00a0 Anyway, I was born in the mid 1970s, so I grew up experiencing the full assault of Pac-Man Fever as a kid.\u00a0 I ate Pac-Man pasta, slept on Pac-Man bedsheets, and watched the Saturday morning cartoon!\u00a0 Heck, I even went to Pac-Man Land in Six Flags Over Texas!\u00a0 Yes that really was a thing!\u00a0 I was into other toys like Star Wars and Transformers, but while I grew out of those, I NEVER grew out of Pac-Man!<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the mid 1990s.\u00a0 I had just finished my first year of college, and that summer there was an ad in The Dallas Morning News calling for game reviewers.\u00a0 I tried out and actually made it, and that\u2019s one of my proudest achievements.\u00a0 I always thought it would be cool to attend video game trade shows like CES and the new-at-the-time E3.\u00a0 And now that I was a member of the press, I decided I\u2019d try and go to E3 that next year.\u00a0 Back then, E3 was totally mind blowing, and it was even more amazing for a Pac-Man fan like me because as soon as I got to Namco\u2019s booth, they were showing off a new 3D Pac-Man game called Pac-Man Ghost Zone!\u00a0 I still have my yellow Ghost Zone squishy ball they were giving out that year!<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Ghost Zone never came out. It\u2019s a shame because I really like that title.\u00a0 But part of the problem was all the strict rules that Namco Japan had for the US team.\u00a0 For instance, they said that you couldn\u2019t play as the actual Pac-Man character.\u00a0 So how did they get around that?\u00a0 Well the story went that you were a kid who was sucked inside a Pac-Man arcade machine, and you turned into Pac-Man.\u00a0 So you were not REALLY Pac-Man.\u00a0 There were other stupid rules they had to follow, that was just an example.\u00a0 But ultimately, the game just wasn\u2019t \u2018gelling\u2019 so it got cancelled.\u00a0 I hate it that a lot of the members of the Ghost Zone team probably got fired, but I bet that sort of thing happens in the video game industry way more than we realize.<\/p>\n

But out of the ashes of Ghost Zone came a new team and a new game.\u00a0 At the next year\u2019s E3, it was called Pac-Man 3D, but would later change the year later to Pac-Man World.\u00a0 One of the reasons why Pac-Man World is such a special game to me is that it\u2019s one of the first games I got to follow from start to finish as a game reviewer.\u00a0 Some of the changes they made between these titles were kind of interesting.\u00a0 For instance, the boss in the pirate level, a giant ship with a sail with eyes on it, was originally named H.M.S. Hanky.\u00a0 But they had to change the name because around that time a little TV show came out called South Park, and one of the characters was a talking piece of poo named Mr. Hanky, and the Pac-Man World team didn\u2019t want to be associated with that.\u00a0 So he got changed to H.M.S. Windbag.\u00a0 It\u2019s a shame because I like the first name better.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t blame them for changing it.<\/p>\n

Another reason why Pac-Man World is such a special game to me is that I got to meet and know many of the team members who worked on it.\u00a0 I still talk with some of them to this day!\u00a0 I always looked forward to seeing them at E3, and whether I was getting my picture taken with Pac-Man or eating yellow Dipper Dots while seeing their progress, talking with the PMW team at E3 was a real treat.\u00a0 I mostly talked with Brian Leake and Scott Rogers, but other members of the team were great to talk with as well.\u00a0 And dealing with the PR professionals like Jennifer Fitzsimmons was fantastic, too.\u00a0 Some people say that shows like E3 are dead, but nothing will replicate getting to meet people in person like that.<\/p>\n

Here’s some interesting facts about the PMW team.\u00a0 Did you know that the game was heavily inspired by Disney?\u00a0 The PMW team liked to go to Disneyland on their breaks, so many of the worlds in the game are based on their favorite rides.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to see how the pirate, space, and spooky levels were based on Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, and The Haunted Mansion!\u00a0 Another Disney influence was in the cutscenes.\u00a0 Back then, Pixar had started to make a name for themselves with classics like Toy Story, A Bug\u2019s Life, and Monsters Inc.\u00a0 Many of these earlier movies had blooper reels in the credits, which is funny since they were animated movies and didn\u2019t need blooper reels.\u00a0 But you can also unlock a blooper reel in Pac-Man World as well!\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you can in the remake.\u00a0 One of the PMW team members, Scott Rogers, actually went on to be a Disney Imagineer for a few years!\u00a0 But before then he helped make other games like a little one you might\u2019ve heard of called God of War, and one of my favorites, Maximo, a 3D spinoff of the Ghosts N Goblins series.\u00a0 And now, Scott Rogers makes a lot of board games!<\/p>\n

One of the best parts of Pac-Man World was the music, and it was done by Tommy Tallarico.\u00a0 You might\u2019ve heard of him as he\u2019s done music for a lot of other games as well.\u00a0 I think he nailed the tunes perfectly in Pac-Man World.\u00a0 He also was a host on a TV show on G4 (remember that channel?), and he started up a video game orchestra concert tour called Video Games Live.\u00a0 I think he also helped start up the Intellivison Amico, but ah, we won\u2019t go into that here.\u00a0 I went to one of the Video Games Live concerts and got to meet him in person.\u00a0 I told him I really liked the music he did in Pac-Man World, and he said it was really fun playing the title theme with Dweezil Zappa.\u00a0 Wait\u2026what?\u00a0 Did that really happen?\u00a0 Wow!<\/p>\n

Anyway, when I wrote my review of Pac-Man World, I was at the top of my game at the newspaper.\u00a0 My review even got a front page tag line!\u00a0 Here\u2019s a picture my review.\u00a0 Sorry I blotted out my face, I don\u2019t want anyone to see what I looked like back then.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many of the PMW team members went on to help make Ms. Pac-Man: Maze Madness and Pac-Man World 2, and it was fun to follow those games as well.\u00a0 Pac-Man World 2 was originally going to be a more open world experience, and you would be able to put on roller blades and flippers to get around the world easier.\u00a0 You could also collect fruit and give it to another Pac person named Smoothie Sue who had a swirl on her head, and she\u2019d mix the fruit into smoothies that would give you power-ups that you can use at any time!\u00a0 Because of time restraints, these ideas had to be cut, but you can still see Smoothie Sue as the host in the arcade in PMW2!<\/p>\n

Years later I got to see Pac-Man World 3 at E3, but it was done by a totally different outside team, and it just wasn\u2019t the same.\u00a0 They bragged about a new chomping animation, and when that\u2019s the big thing in a game, you know something\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 I liked that you could play as some of the ghosts, but otherwise, it\u2019s one of the few Pac-Man games I never finished.\u00a0 Also, if you like the gameplay of the Pac-Man World titles and don\u2019t mind the awful, awful Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures cartoon license, the games based on that were actually not THAT bad.<\/p>\n

A few years earlier, right before Pac-Man World 2 was going to be released, I got some sad news.\u00a0 I was going to be let go from the newspaper because the editor of that section had moved onto another department, and they didn\u2019t want to keep any of the reviewers from before.\u00a0 So I sadly had to email the team and tell them to NOT send me a review copy because I was just let go and wouldn\u2019t be able to review it.\u00a0 But you know what?\u00a0 The team sent me a copy anyway and they all signed the box!\u00a0 I bet the PMW2 team members forgot they did that, but I\u2019ll never forget it!\u00a0 If you take away one thing from this article, it\u2019s that you should never shy away from doing something nice to someone.\u00a0 Because no matter how small, an act of kindness may mean the world to that person.\u00a0 And signing that box and sending me the game certainly meant the world to me and really cheered me up after being let go from reviewing games at the newspaper for over five years!<\/p>\n

Which is a shame that in the Pac-Man World: Re-Pac game, the original team wasn\u2019t even credited!\u00a0 At least as of this writing.\u00a0 I hope Bandai Namco makes a patch to at least thank the team as a whole.\u00a0 But until then, if Bandai Namco won\u2019t credit them, than I will right here!\u00a0 So here\u2019s a list of the people who worked on that game!<\/p>\n

Gil Colgate<\/p>\n

Joey Headen<\/p>\n

Brian Leake<\/p>\n

Roman Scharnberg<\/p>\n

Martin Cameron<\/p>\n

Vince Joly<\/p>\n

Monty Kane<\/p>\n

Hardy LeBel<\/p>\n

Ken McAll<\/p>\n

Mike McLaughlin<\/p>\n

Scott Rogers<\/p>\n

Neil Strudwick<\/p>\n

Brian Wanamaker<\/p>\n

Jesse Taylor<\/p>\n

Brian Schorr<\/p>\n

Dana Christianson<\/p>\n

Tommy Tallarico Studios<\/p>\n

Joey Kuras<\/p>\n

Todd Dennis<\/p>\n

Mike Fischer<\/p>\n

Jennifer Fitzsimmons<\/p>\n

Eruch Adams<\/p>\n

Gabe Benveniste<\/p>\n

Brian Coker<\/p>\n

Eric Coker<\/p>\n

Ed Chennault<\/p>\n

James Guirao<\/p>\n

Scott Hill<\/p>\n

Jared Jackson<\/p>\n

Kyle Mannerberg<\/p>\n

Hall Nguy<\/p>\n

Hien Nguyen<\/p>\n

Francisco Rivera<\/p>\n

Itai Rom<\/p>\n

Mark Sau<\/p>\n

Shawn Taylor<\/p>\n

Yoshi Homma<\/p>\n

Jeff Miller<\/p>\n

Tak Hyodo<\/p>\n

Ys Noguchi<\/p>\n

Aron Drayer<\/p>\n

Garry Cole<\/p>\n

Paul Guirao<\/p>\n

Alex McLaren<\/p>\n

Jennifer Tersgni<\/p>\n

Hideki Yoshimoto<\/p>\n

Yasuhiko Asada<\/p>\n

Syukuo Ishikawa<\/p>\n

Shigeru Yokoyama<\/p>\n

Masanori Kato<\/p>\n

Noby Kasahara<\/p>\n

Masaya Nakamura<\/p>\n

OK so yeah all I did was watch a video of the original PMW ending and copied the names.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sure that not everyone was credited there either.\u00a0 I imagine that\u2019s something else that happens a lot in the video game industry.\u00a0 So if you were not credited here or if you were on the original Pac-Man Ghost Zone team, speak up and reach out to me and I\u2019ll add your name to the list!<\/p>\n

So now I think I\u2019ll talk about the Pac-Man World: Re-Pac remake and what has changed and what has stayed the same.\u00a0 I was really impressed with how close they got the play control and level design to the original game.\u00a0 Which is good because many remakes don\u2019t get the \u2018feel\u2019 of the original right.\u00a0 The game is a little easier this time because they added an extra bar of health and a new move that\u2019s like a flutter jump from Yoshi\u2019s Island.\u00a0 But you really don\u2019t need that because jumping was never a problem for me in the original game.\u00a0 They also changed some of the bosses to be easier, or just different.\u00a0 For instance, the clown race is now in first person.\u00a0 And the Krome Keeper boss is totally different.\u00a0 In the original game, you had to turn into Metal Pac-Man to flip switches that had heating elements on them.\u00a0 But in the remake, you just have to wait for the metal power up to come through a conveyor belt, then just dash into the robot boss.\u00a0 Toc-Man\u2019s fight has also changed a bit, but I won\u2019t go into it so as not to spoil it too much. \u00a0Oh yeah, and Anubis Rex is still the hardest boss in the game, even though he\u2019s only the second one!\u00a0 But at least they changed some of the patterns to be avoided easier.<\/p>\n

The cutscenes are a little different.\u00a0 Mainly because they had to change the characters to be Pac-Mom, Pac-Boy, Pac-Sis, Pac-Buddy, etc.\u00a0 I talked about this more in my Pac-Man Museum+ article<\/strong><\/a>, so I recommend you go read that if you want to know how I feel about that.\u00a0 Honestly I like the original cutscenes better.\u00a0 I know people are sometimes like, \u201cEw, 90\u2019s PSOne era cutscenes,\u201d but I think the ones in Pac-Man World were quite good.\u00a0 There are also two different endings now.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t save all the family members, Pac-Man still eats a power pellet and chomps Orson a.k.a. Toc-Man at the end, and then the ghosts free the un-recused Pacs.\u00a0 But if you do rescue them all, then Pac-Man forgives Orson and they shake hands and all the ghosts are at Pac-Man\u2019s party, too.\u00a0 Honestly I kind of like the new ending, but only because I like the ghost monsters just as much, if not more than, Pac-Man himself.<\/p>\n

Luckily the music remained untouched, although it does sound clearer or maybe retouched.\u00a0 But that may also be because I\u2019m playing the remake on better speakers than I did the original game.\u00a0 But here\u2019s something I don\u2019t get.\u00a0 How did they get around the copyright laws with Ms. Pac-Man, when the music plays many licks from the Ms. Pac-Man intro and intermission themes?\u00a0 I guess I don\u2019t fully understand how these laws work.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, I did NOT get the special edition of Pac-Man World: Re-Pac.\u00a0 The regular game only costs 30 bucks, but the special one was nearly three times that much, and it only came with some weird robotic anime Pac-Man statue.\u00a0 It just looked like Namco had lots of unsold product in their online store and decided to throw it in there.\u00a0 So I didn\u2019t get it.\u00a0 Plus I\u2019m trying to save money.\u00a0 Times are tough.\u00a0 I kind of wish they would\u2019ve included something more related to the game, like a soundtrack or art book.\u00a0 But nothing beats one of my most prized possessions, a Pac-Man World store standup a good friend gave me a long time ago.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a pic.\u00a0 Sorry for the bedpost blocking the view.\u00a0 My room\u2019s a little small.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all I have to say about Pac-Man World!\u00a0 I may actually give Re-Pac my Game of the Year award at the end of the year.\u00a0 Not because it\u2019s the most deserving, although it\u2019s still a fun game. But no, the reason why I may do that is because the game helped remind me of all the special memories I\u2019ve had as a game reviewer covering the original game, and I\u2019m very thankful for that.\u00a0 And that\u2019s just one example.\u00a0 There are MANY other games I\u2019ve had special memories with like that.\u00a0 I may not have made game reviewing my full time job (yet).\u00a0 I may not have millions of people hanging on my every word at IGN and I\u2019m not a famous YouTuber influencer or whatever.\u00a0 But I think I\u2019ve had more great experiences like this than the average gamer has.\u00a0 And you can\u2019t take that away from me!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pac-Man World: Re-Pac was recently released, and it\u2019s a remake of Pac-Man World, a 3-D platformer originally on the PSOne to celebrate Pac-Man\u2019s 20th anniversary.\u00a0 Pac-Man World may not be one of my favorite Pac-Man games, but I have a lot of special memories about it that I thought I\u2019d share with you in this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22639"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22641,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22639\/revisions\/22641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}