Hi, welcome to my review of a, in my opinion, pretty cool hack of Pac-Man called Pac-Man Remix. The hack lives up to its name: it really is a remix of Pac-Man. The new maze is green and it has some places where you can very easily get trapped by ghosts. The ghosts now go through walls (like they're supposed to!), hence me calling them real ghosts in this review's title.

Also, there's a new ghost added to the Take Out Pac-Man Squad in this hack, since Pinky stinks (just kidding! XD) His name is Steel, since he's gray. After I first started playing this hack for a minute or 2, I saw what this new ghost is capable of. He's very similar to the other ghosts, enjoying their ability to pass through walls and make Pac-Man shocked and very jealous, but there's something different about this dude. When Pac-Man eats a ghosteater pellet, Steel is invulnerable! I guess the creator of this hack wanted it to be a little bit like Pac-Man Plus where sometimes one ghost isn't affected by the ghosteater pellet.

I'll talk more about the ghosts' new advantages and Pac-Man's new disadvantages later. XD For now, I'll get started with the review!

Graphics: 8/10

Most of the graphics remain unchanged, but there are some things in the game that got redecorated with new colors. One example is the display on the right of the maze that shows the player how many lives they have after they die. Instead of the extra Pac-Men being colored the usual yellow, they're white. It's a little interesting to me because that means they instantly change colors when it's their turns to play Another minor graphics change is that in the first cut-scene, Blinky remains red when he's running, er, floating away from Pac-Man instead of turning blue. I guess Pac-Man found a special ghosteater pellet.

The color of the maze changed. Instead of blue, it's green! I liked it better when it was blue but the green still looks really nice! It's the perfect shade of green too. The title screen is custom. The logo now says "Pac-Man Remix" and instead of a select arrow for the amount of players, there's a select ghost. I'd rather have that be a Pac-Man, since you're selecting the amount of people playing as Pac-Man, not as a ghost.

Finally, all the pellets including the ghosteater pellet have changed quite a bit. They're bigger and they are white with a green border.

I like most of these graphics changes and they make this hack have more graphic variety than the original Pac-Man does!

Sound: 9/10

There isn't much to say here because none of the sounds have been altered from the original game. The original game's sounds were very well done, especially the sound that plays when the ghosts are edible.

Addictiveness: 3/10

Even though I've been a big fan of Pac-Man for 8 years, I don't find this hack very addicting. I've only played it every several months and I've only played it a few times in my lifetime. But when I do play it, I get somewhat addicted until I get a game over. The original Pac-Man is much more addicting for me, and I think the majority of the people that play this agree with me. The new maze makes the game more difficult than the original (which I'll go into detail about later) and it's the main reason this isn't as addicting. It's a nice challenge for people like me that are great at Pac-Man but it isn't an addicting challenge. However, reviewing this hack makes me want to play it a little more for some reason

Story: 0/10

Since Pac-Man, and this hack, are just arcade games that are played just for fun and high scores, there's no story to this game. However, there is an objective. Just like the original, the goal is to eat as many dots in as many levels as you can while avoiding the ghosts. But now there's an added challenge: you have to play without passing through walls whereas the ghosts can pass through walls. It makes the game not-so-fun at times...

Depth: 6/10

There isn't much to do in this hack. All you can do is eat a ton of dots, aim for the high score, eat the ghosts when they're edible (except for Steel), and eat the fruits that appear in the middle of the maze for a few seconds. It's just like the original, except for the fact that it takes longer to beat the levels than the original. The new mazes are more interesting and more challenging.

Difficulty: 8.5/10

This hack is very difficult, even for pro players like me! It requires a lot of strategy to beat the levels, especially when the ghosteater pellets start not lasting more than just a couple seconds. There are several spots at the top of the maze where you can easily get trapped by ghosts unless they're edible. It's easier to get trapped, or even cornered, by ghosts since like I said before they can pass through walls. In the original, they couldn't pass through any walls. The thing is, you can't pass through walls so you have a pretty big disadvantage. Sometimes it seems really unfair.

I've only been able to get to level 5 so far, and like I said I'm a pro at Pac-Man! If it wasn't for me using several strategies in each level, I wouldn't have gotten that far.

Overall: 7/10

Despite it being really difficult, I've enjoyed the time I spent playing this hack. I'd recommend it to anyone who's really experienced at Pac-Man and up for a bigger challenge. I'd also recommend it to people who were upset that the ghosts in the original game didn't pass through walls like ghosts are supposed to do XD

Thank you so much for reading this review! Don't be afraid to throw some tomatoes, er, criticism at me. I'm always seeking improvement in the way I do reviews so if you see something you think I could improve, please let me know!

*throws tomato* I mean...

Nice work, Pac. The addition of ghosts passing through walls makes a lot of sense, but it seems like a bad idea as much as it sounds like a good one. The walls are all that kept the game partially balanced to begin with. Hopefully they at least slowed the ghost's movement down some to make up for that, though I doubt it (apologies if I missed where you said so).

All in all it sounds pretty decent for a hack I guess, but I'll have to pass. I rarely get an urge to play Pac man, but when I do I'll be reaching for the Namco collection on MAME.

Eirinn : *catches tomato* You think this is funny? In all seriousness I'm glad someone commented on that joke

The ghosts' movement speed is the same. That's a part of a Pac-Man hack I usually don't look into, but it isn't hard to notice if the ghosts are moving faster than usual. Probably because I've been playing Pac-Man for 8 years XD

I don't like this hack as much as the original so I'll likely be reaching for the original as well instead of this hack.