I downloaded
both of the Ghostly Adventures games
as part of another Xbox deal and rather than sit on them for months/years, I
decided to give the first one a go. It had a relatively easy achievement list
coupled with a friendly child feel and a low estimated completion time
(something I will start focusing on more over the coming months) so I thought
it wouldn’t take up too much of my time.
I managed to
complete the game across three real-life days but my word, it was a slog and
here’s why. While the overall completion time is relatively short, the game
itself is monumentally repetitive. Most levels are the same and don’t offer a
massive variety of gameplay elements.
Ghostly Adventures is a basic
platforming game when Pac-Man double jumps and chomps his way through various
levels. He can also change into six different forms but most levels are an
episode of repetition – follow the path, eat the ghosts, get the fruit. There
is a storyline running through the reasons why you have to do what you have to
do but it has no bearing on the gameplay in any way. This isn’t really a
criticism but more of a point that the story didn’t add anything to the game
for me.
In addition
to the main game, there are arcade games that unlock as you progress. These do
offer some different gameplay elements but not a lot has gone into making them
and they feel tacked on.
The most
annoying part of the game, however, is the sound effects. The music is
‘plinky-plunky’ and repetitive as with most games of this type, however the
most annoying thing is Pac-Man’s voice. He makes Spiderman look modest with how
often he refers to himself as ‘awesome’ and this continues throughout the
entire game. As there are quite a few levels, which is noticeable when they are
all essentially the same, this really began grating me towards the end. Despite
what he says, his voice is generally annoying too.
Achievements – 1,000 Points – 25
Achievements
The
achievement list is fairly straight forward if not frustrating. You get 9 achievements
for playing the game from start to finish.
There are achievements for killing 100 ghosts in 5 of pac-man’s forms,
but not Rubber Pac for some reason, and another for killing 300 scared ghosts. I targeted the scared ghosts when I
realised it was an achievement and got that before the end of the game. 4 of
the others came with generally playing it but I had to grind out ghost kills as
Metal Pac as you only use him three or four times while playing – which is
shocking considering the lack of variety in the game.
The arcade
levels I mentioned above each carry an achievement for completing all the
levels they contain. I found these fairly straightforward and managed to get
them all on my first attempt which saved me having to play them repeatedly.
On top of
these there are a few other for doing certain things like getting 50 lives in
one go and getting Pac-Man’s health up to six, which you do by obtaining cheery
pie things and multicoloured slime pick-ups which you get throughout the game.
Neither of these needed to grinded out though because the last achievement for
collecting an arcade coin from every level requires you to play most of the
repetitive levels once more to add to the repetitiveness. That’s a whole lot of
repetitive.
Downloadable Content – N/A
As I think
I’ve repeatedly mentioned, Ghostly
Adventures is quite repetitive but I suppose it is to be expected as it is
a kid’s style game. It’s a fairly easy completion on the face of it but I did
find it quite boring, especially towards the end.
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