Pac-Mania

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Pac Mania brings a different style in Pac Man gaming. The maze is now shown in isometric perspective and is larger than screen which will scroll to follow the action. To help get out of tight spots, Pac-Man now has the ability to jump. But be careful, because some of the ghosts have learned this trick as well and you could end up in a mid air collision. And believe me this jump can save you from hard situations. The main goal of the game is to swallow all the dots and complete the level. There are four worlds (rounds here) to travel through, the first three are selectable as staring levels from the front end. On the higher levels, things like wraparound mazes appear just to fool you into thinking that the maze is larger than it is. More and more ghosts appear and mazes become more intricate. Right near the end, the big ghosts appear (twice the size of an ordinary ghost) which are hard to avoid and have the ability to...jump too! There's also a use a Pac Booster that lets him move at super-speeds. The only problem is, now you can no longer see the full playfield, so you can't know exactly which pills you haven't taken, or plan your routes and strategies accordingly.
In general, Pac-Mania is great. You'll love the new challenging levels - they are available in so many mind-boggling shapes and they'll surely turn you into a certified Pac-Maniac! What a simple, addictive and excellent game to play indeed!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Acorn Archimedes conversion is technically pretty cool. The game features nice and colorful graphics and innovative level design (much close to the original)! Although the Archimedes version is using up to 16 colors on-screen, when compared to the Amiga version (running in 32 colors) the graphics look similar and they run smooth. The Acorn sound is excellent, featuring all the original tunes and sound effects. Of note is the fact that the Archimedes' conversion sounds a little better than the Commodore Amiga counterpart (!)