Pacman revisited: The massive cheese wedge of doooom.

PacmanCE is developed and published by Namco-Bandai and available on the Xbox 360 live marketplace for $10 per 800 Microsoft Points.  There is no multiplayer support for this title.  But most importantly it's cheap!

Pacman and Accessibility

This is a very good game for all the deaf gamers out there, as all of the sound is repetitive and have absolutely no effect on your gaming experience. The only sounds in the game are a repetitive techno track, the "Wak-ka" sound when you eat dots or pellets, when you are close to getting an extra life it makes a chiming noise, and when you eat the stop-signs the ghosts turn blue along with a riff of ascending retro beeps. None of the sounds are required for an enjoyable Pac-Man experience. Everything is communicated visually in a very understandable way that will allow you to enjoy the game without its 8-bit sounds. Overall, this is a very enjoyable experience for the deaf gamer.

Pacman championship edition is a very colorful game that is almost purely aesthetic. The board is a glowing neon rainbow of colors that show you the outline of the walls of the board that you need to navigate. It's very pretty to look at, other than that it serves no real purpose. Even if you cannot see the exact colors or only black-and-white, you will still be able to tell the layout of the board.

Each of the four different ghosts is colored pink, red, orange, and blue, they all do the same things so telling them apart does not affect your gaming experience, other than you may not know who is Inky and who is Pinky. There are different pieces of fruit and objects that give you points; these are easily distinguishable even in pure black-and-white. It is fairly accommodating for people that have color blindness and minor vision problems. All the numbers are quite large when you receive points.  Visually impaired gamers should have an easy time enjoying this classic remake of Pac-Man.

There is absolutely no way to remap the keys or anything of that nature.  Although, not that mapping is really needed in this particular game because you only need to use a single joystick to enjoy this wonderful classic games ever created. You only need to use the green button on your Xbox 360 controller to start the game or select what gameplay mode you wish to play. Namco Bandai's Pacman Championship Edition by nature has a very accessible control scheme to it and could even be played solely with your tongue.

Pacman Championship Edition is a highly accessible and inexpensive title that almost any disabled gamer can have a grand old time playing. It really is nice that such a classic game is still enjoyable and addicting as ever, the new gameplay modes also help to increase the re-playability value.  The only complaint I could find personally with this game is the fact is there is no multiplayer support. This just makes you have to take turns with your friends when they come over to play.

For the disabled gamer this game is definitely worth the $10 price tag on the Xbox live marketplace.

Comments (2)

Stephanie Walker

May 07, 2009

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Thanks Kit! I might just have to wrestle the xbox controller away from my husband and check it out.

Graeme

May 28, 2009

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You can also find an accessible Pacman-style game here:
http://www.graemesfreegames.co...witch.html
Works with a single button press (spacebar/left mouse button or a compatible switch unit that emulates spacebar or left mouse click) and has several options to slow the game down and vary the difficulty.

And it's completely free to download and play.

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