Pac-Man World Rally Preview

Looks like our good old yellow buddy still has some tricks up his sleeve….arm…the point is that it sounds like Pac-Mans going a completely different direction than we’ve seen before. As so far seen it looks like the game’s using a Mario Kart sort of theme. Although the game lets you race with all your Pac-Man favorites, it also uses some of Namco’s other stars including Pooka, from Dig Dug, Fryga, Prince, and other famous characters. Alltogether there should be 16 characters released in the PSP version of the game. (The console versions have 14, the PSP is getting two exclusives!) Gameplay will be largely similar to Mario Kart although with some distinct differences. Powersliding is very much intact, and doing it well rewards you with different speed boosts depending on how well your sliding is performed. Sliding well also rewards you with invulnerability against enemy attacks. You’ll need some good defense too, because there’ll be many weapons availible to tear your opponents apart with. But even weapons won’t be your best offense. By collecting the pellets spread throughout each track, you can change into Pac-Mobile. Which initiates an invincible mode where you can simply eat your enimies just like in the original Pac-Man games.

The game has an interesting single-player in store, but multiplayer isnt being ignored either. A battle mode will let players and computer controlled opponets face off in a free-for-all battle to the death. Each player has his or her own health bar that is depleted as each player beats the tar out of each other with the many weapons in the game. Up to four players will be able to partcipate in the battles with the PSP version of the game. Even though the game looks very similar in ways to Mario Kart, it appears it’ll have some interesting features that only a Pac-Man game could have. Pac-Man World Rally speeds onto shelves on August 22.