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 Sharp X68000 conversion is technically almost identical to the arcade and superior to any other 16bit home-computer conversion (and possibly console). It features the very colorful visuals and innovative level design and concept of the original coin-op. The game offers more than 170 colors on-screen(!) and runs pretty smoothly around huge gameplay areas with big sprites, in contrast the other 16bit counterparts. The game's sound is arcade perfect featuring the original funny tunes along with the coin-op's sampled sound effects.