SNES: The New Adventures - Pac-Man 2
Just before Christmas, a store opened near me that sells used games for every video game system under the sun. Below is a list of what they offer:
- Nintendo Entertainment System
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System
- Sega Genesis
- Sony Playstation (1, 2, and 3)
- Nintendo 64
- Nintendo GameCube
- Xbox
- Nintendo Wii
- and more, I’m sure
I still have my SNES and N64, along with the family Wii, and so I’ve been perusing the shelves looking for games that have been lost throughout the years. The other day, I found that they have seven cartridges of a game I used to have called Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures.
I bought one for shits and giggles. I remember it wasn’t a particularly fun game, but I decided to give it another shot. For this store, $9.95 was a bit pricey, but hey, it’s only money, right?
Jesus fuck, this game is just as terrible as it was when I was ten. The entire premise of the game is to direct a frighteningly anthropomorphic version of Pac-Man through “missions” (if they could even be called that) by shooting various objects, including Pac-Man, with your slingshot.
It’s classified as a puzzle game, but a better description is puzzling game. The plot makes no sense. Your first task is to orientate yourself to Pac-Man’s world, which takes 20 minutes of shooting random objects with the slingshot until Pac-Man decides he’s satisfied. The next task is to get Pac-Baby more milk because the ugly infantile 8-bit bastard has an insatiable appetite for your suffering. The third task is to get flowers for some neighborhood kid’s birthday or something, I don’t know. Finally, we get to some conflict in the fourth mission, where Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde steal Pac-Man Jr.’s guitar and Pac-Man, having to actually be a parent for once, goes to the big city to get it and somehow has to save the world or something.
My biggest beef of this game, aside from being pointlessly difficult, is that there’s no way to save the game if you need to, and the only way to get back to where you were is with “passwords” randomly given during gameplay.
If offered this game, don’t take it. Even if it’s free. Even if they also offer you a bucket of leprechauns that shit gold. Even if they also offer you a goose that lays nothing but truffles. If you do somehow end up with Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, you should destroy it, then sanitize yourself to keep the awfulness out of your system.
Next in the series: Biker Mice from Mars (1994)
