PacMan Championship CE:DX is finally here for the XBox 360, and this week will be coming out on the PS3.  Well, what do we think?  It seems they have taken the perfection that is PacMan Championship Edition and improved on it.  The graphics have been given a serious upgrade, and you can choose from 10 different maze styles (with one of those being Darkness, which is every maze in almost total darkness) as well as different graphic styles.  There are 8 different graphic styles: classic graphics, a cool looking neon style, a couple of LEGO-looking mazes (similar to PacMania), an interesting 3D style, a shiny candy style, and something that looks kind of like the old Atari 2600 graphics (but in a good way.)

Like the original PacMan CE, the maze has two halves, and clearing one side will make a bonus item pop up on the opposite side of the maze, and eating that item will morph the cleared maze half into a new configuration.  The differences, aside from the look of the game, are the addition of Sleeping Ghosts, the Bombs, the ability to make the ghosts chase you, and the massive amounts of points you can pick up by "Chain Chomping" conga lines of what looks like up to 30 ghosts plus however many ghosts you eat while under the influence of a power pellet.  The reason I don't know how many ghosts, is I really haven't had time to count them, but it seems like 30 ghosts, so that's the number I'm running with!  You know, those big glowing dots that turn all the ghosts blue?  You can keep the chain going probably the entire game, some people on the leaderboards have eaten over 200 in a chain.  I can only get around 100 ghosts.

 The way the Sleeping Ghosts work in the game, is they are placed in the maze in different areas. and will awaken when PacMan passes them.  They will make a noise, an exclamation point will appear over their head, and they will start chasing you or join the conga line.  If you already have 30 ghosts following you, then they will simply be knocked off the screen.  Another way to get ghosts to chase you are to simply get close to the free-roaming ghosts in the maze, they will get the exclamation points and start chasing you.  A set of eyes will travel back to the ghost generator and create another free-roaming ghost.  Also, when you get close to the ghosts, the game will slow down in a PacMan "Gullet Time", and it gives you time to react and think which direction you should go.  If that fails, you can set off a bomb which will send all of the ghosts back to the ghost generator, the only drawback is the speed of the game will slow down.  The more you eat without bombing or dying, the faster you'll go.

The modes of play have also seen additions.  You have Score Attack, which is simply getting the highest score for each maze, available on 5 minute and 10 minute sessions.  Ghost Combo mode allows you to use as many bombs as possible, and to die many times, because the only thing you are there to do is to Chain Chomp ghosts, and when you think you've eaten enough or you totally miff a section, you can simply hit the select button to get out of the game and start over. There are also a ton of Time Trials, ranging from eating 3 bonus items on each side to eating 20 bonus items on each side.

With all of these modes come competition and leaderboards, and everything has a leaderboard.  Everything.  Individual mazes on Score Attack, Ghost Combo, Time Trials, and total scores across all mazes, all have leaderboards.  It's still amazing to see the highest scores in Score Attack and total game score being so high, nearly double my 58 million points, but I think those people are crazy in to this game.  And good for them, it's an awesome game.  The gameplay is tight, the graphics look awesome, and it's only $10 on XBLA and PSN.  PacMan CE:DX is a no-brainer purchase on either system, and we're just going to give it The World of Einstein & Pencil Shavings Game of the Year right now, because we can.  Now if only we can get Ms. PacMan: CE or as DLC?

Below: Maze of Darkness