Pac man kart rally2/25/2024 There's Ms Pac-Man, and Pac-Man Jr, plus Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde. Things certainly aren't helped by the rather limp cast that Pac brings with him. 2 (or more) Pac The weapons are fairly uninspired - though the heat-seeking strawberry is good for a giggle. Imitation rather than innovation is the goal here, and the result feels like one of those tribute acts that turn out to be surprisingly good, but ultimately serve only to remind you how good the original was. Such minor innovations, while making good use of the Pac-Man elements, aren't enough to compensate for the overall lack of ambition though. Later tracks boast multiple shortcuts and, as you can only carry one fruit key at a time, there's a subtle hint of strategy in choosing which pathway you want to aim for. With it in your inventory, the clearly marked shortcut opens up as you approach. As with the power pills, you first have to activate them by driving over one, then you need to hit another to actually pick up that item of fruit. The fruit pick-ups also make an appearance, acting as keys to open shortcuts on each track. Gobbling these up fills your Pac Meter which, when full, grants you the expected power pill bonus - your kart transforms into a chomping Pac-Man and you can eat any racers you catch. Driving over power pills activates lines of pills down the track. There are even some fun twists to the formula that use the Pac-Man paraphernalia in rather clever ways. From the little shoulder-button hops to get round corners or deliver a sly speed boost to the way weapons can be fired backwards or forwards with a quick jab of the left stick, it feels so immediately familiar that it's hard not to be a little bit seduced. The controls, for instance, are identical. Other racers have tried to copy the original formula, but this is the first kart racer since Crash Team Racing to get within spitting distance of the perfect copy. Seriously, do a quick palette swap, change the characters around and you could be playing the Nintendo original. Perhaps that's why I'm finding it hard to be too outraged at the fact that Pac-Man Rally is, to all intents and purposes, Mario Kart. To give the little pill-guzzler his due, he does have more of a claim to the crown than most, having shared the track with the moustached one as a secret character in Namco's 2005 Mario Kart arcade cabinet. Needless to say, Pac-Man Rally (released everywhere else on the planet-sphere as Pac-Man World Rally) doesn't exactly arrive dripping with the sweet sticky honey of anticipation. Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Mario Kart Katamari's Prince is just one of several Namco characters waiting to be unlocked. Let that thought roll around in your brain for a moment. Hell, there was even a Woody Woodpecker racing game. There's probably at least a hundred more yet. Off the top of my handsomely proportioned head, we've been "blessed" with kart racers featuring Looney Tunes, South Park, Antz, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Bomberman, Crash Bandicoot, Diddy Kong, The Beano and Crazy Frog. From our vantage point in 2007 the kart racing sub-genre has been sullied beyond repair by a parade of shockingly lazy knock-offs, pasting famous brands into tiny cars with wanton disregard for the nuances that made Mario's outing so damn great. Thanks to the voracious commercial gullet of the games boar, that freshness and innovation didn't last long. Hard to imagine now, but back then the very idea of a famous platform character taking the wheel of a dinky go-kart was fresh and innovative. But more than that was the genre-hopping freedom it heralded. Obviously, there was the addictive glee of a beautifully realised and devilishly silly racing game, the sense of witnessing the arrival of a classic. I still remember what it was like when Super Mario Kart first came out, back in 1992.
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