Earlier this week rumors were circulating around the internet that Microsoft would be making a big announcement this week. The announcement turned out to be the release of Pac-Man Championship Edition. The rumors should have been that an previously unannounced game was going to be released because this does not warrant the “big announcement” category. I checked out the trail version of Pac-Man CE this morning and I’m pretty disappointed. First, for a $10 game the trail version only lets you check out one of the modes and it is only for 5 minutes. I’ve never been that good at Pac-Man, but I did find that I did pretty well in my 5 minutes. I did die once trying to eat a ghost before the power pellet wore off, but other than that it was pretty easy. I’m sure it would have been harder to do the 10 minute version. The game comes with 6 different game modes all of which are timed. Unlike the original Pac-Man in the Championship Edition you’re not so much trying to stay alive as you are trying to get as high of a score as possible within the time limit. Also, the whole level does not start off filled with pellets. Instead a small section has pellets. Once you eat all of those a piece of fruit appears on the other side of the map and eating it adds more pellets back to the map. Each time the fruit adds more pellets than what you ate before. Despite not being that good at Pac-Man I had fun playing the single level of the trial because the controls worked well. Unlike the original Pac-Man on the Xbox Live Arcade the controls in the Championship Edition were actually designed for the controller.

The only game play related thing I found annoying was when you eat a power pellet the screen had this wavy effect for a few seconds. I don’t see a need for that. The achievements seem like they would be pretty easy to pick up for the most part. They are mostly the usual get a certain score or complete a specific level ones.

The reason I’m disappointed with Pac-Man Championship Edition is because of the $10 price tag. The entire game’s 6 modes can be played through in just 45 minutes. Sure, you’re going to play them multiple times trying to get a better score each time, but I still think this game either needs more modes or the price lowered to$5. For those of you who are huge Pac-Man fans Championship Edition is probably going to be great for you. For the rest of us Championship Edition does not have enough replay value to be worth the cost of admission.