Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is perhaps the best proof that a thirty-year-old arcade idea can be reworked to feel completely modern. The foundation stays the same: a maze, dots, four ghosts, and power pellets that turn the hunted prey into the hunter. Everything else, though, is turned upside down. The maze splits into two halves, and as soon as you clear one, a fresh set of dots and more fruit instantly appears in the other, so you never stop moving. It's played against the clock, usually five or ten minutes, and it's entirely about the highest possible score.

The main new addition is sleeping ghosts scattered through the corridors. Drive past them and they wake up, joining a trail that stretches behind you like a snake. The longer the snake, the greater the risk, but also the greater the reward, since eating a power pellet turns the whole line of ghosts into one giant chain of points. The game also adds bombs for an emergency escape and a time-slowdown the instant a collision is about to happen, so even utterly desperate situations can be saved. On top of that, the pace keeps accelerating as your score rises, until a calm game turns into a hectic ride on the edge of reflexes.

Visually it's a neon show of pulsing colors and several graphical styles, including ones that reference classic arcade cabinets. On Xbox 360 it ran flawlessly and completely smoothly, which is essential at that speed. The electronic music speeds up alongside the game and its beat literally drives the player forward. Critics received the game extremely well, and many reviewers called it one of the best arcade games of the digital era. Today it's an ideal fifteen-minute title that easily turns into two hours chasing a better score. It also nicely demonstrates that a cleverly reimagined classic can be more interesting than most new ideas, since it rests on rules proven by whole generations of arcade players.