[#] Pac-Man World 2 (Namco, 2002)

Cute, kinda frustrating, needed more ice skating.

Pac-Man World 2 is one of those games I've owned forever but only just got around to beating, on stream with some friends the week I write this. Before the series took the amusingly testy tone of the third entry, they were whimsical, quick 3D platformers featuring bright locales and plenty of certain death for a nevertheless cheerful looking Pac-Man. In 2, a villain named Spooky swipes the golden fruit from Pac-Village's tree, and who else is sprung into action to retrieve them? There's also lots of arcade tokens around, and Pac-Man can return home from saving the world to play Pac-Attack with them as a lil treat.

Before we get underway, I have to warn you. Whether or not you'll hate this game depends partially on what version you play. We discovered late in the campaign, after getting our asses kicked an astounding number of times for such a cutesy game, that there's actually two revisions, and I'd been playing the first one! The second revision rebalances the frankly assaholic level designs, makes touching ghosts non-fatal, slows the bosses down, and adds more checkpoints to the levels. All of these are frankly necessary additions, as the first revision (which I still beat) is annoyingly unfair really all throughout the campaign. (Alas, regardless of revision, the camera always sucks.)

Assuming you're playing the nicer version, however, what you'll find is a decently well-built, zippy (like 5-6 hours to complete) 3D platformer that takes Pac-Man through foggy forests, snowy mountains, volcanoes, and even down in a submarine for a beat. The snow portion of the game is the best, for one level and one level alone—Blade Mountain. Yes, friends, Pac-Man ice skates, and the speed is exhilarating and the level design lets you glide around with the grace of a violent swan. It's a shame only that one level comes anywhere close to memorable greatness, and the rest is just alright. Cute. Often frustrating. I'd recommend 3 over it.