I and Me

On to another puzzle-platforming game in I and Me. In this game you control two cats simultaneously as you navigate through various landscapes to get the cats into picture frames.

I and Me has many issues. It’s slow and unforgiving in that some levels are long and one mistake would put you back to the start. It also makes that bizarre and unnecessary step of introducing pretentious lines of some bullshit dialogue after every level completion.

The game is 2D and takes place across four different areas and each area there is a different puzzle mechanic that makes for different solving strategies. Thankfully the result of getting the cats into frames is quite forgiving which is nice if you make a slight mistake that you won’t need to restart the level.

In addition, the game offers a hint system that will allow you to complete most levels by showing you very nearly exactly what to do. This doesn’t work on some of the later levels though so it’s back to the whole trying to figure it out alone with no help.

Graphically, its very basic and some of the traps can be unforgiving where if you go slightly near a spike or dangerous obstacle, your cat will die. Likewise, edges are really easy to fall off. For example, if you realise you are about to fall into some water or off a ledge and stop, you will likely still slide over the edge and you will be powerless to do anything about it.

Sound-wise, personally I think the music goes with the messages between levels in that it’s awfully pretentious and appears to be trying to be calming, along with the general game play. However, it fails in this regard and comes across as boring and dreary.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 13 Achievements

It’s a very short list and eight of the achievements are earned by completing all the levels. While this is straightforward and most of the levels can be completed without a guide, this will still take a while, mainly due to the unforgiving nature of some of the levels. There’s also a lot of them to get through – 100 to be precise.

Along the way there are collectable notes to get, 20 in total. They are fairly easy to see as most levels are very open, you just need to do a different path through the level to collect the note. They only count if you complete the level after grabbing the note though, so this means being a bit inventive with the gameplay and these are the only levels where there is a need to deviate from the normal path.

There are a couple of random things you have to do in certain levels. In level 1-14, you have to keep jumping over hedgehogs for 15 seconds without completing the level and in level 4-4, you have to complete it without using a flashlight that reveals the traps – trial and error for this one as you are essentially getting through the level blind.

This is also a cumulative achievement for jumping 2,000 times but this will unlock before the end of the game so it’s all good – no grinding necessary thankfully.

Downloadable Content – N/A

I and Me is a flat and boring puzzle game that lacks charm despite trying its best to have some. It’s too long and really outstays its welcome come the end. It’s easy, yes, but its three to four hours you’ll be keen to forget. For £9.99 I would say that it’s also overpriced for the repetitive, flat content.

Arcade Game Series: Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man

Clearing down the backlog of purchased games isn’t getting easier so it was time to focus on some quicker games despite their elevated difficulty. As the Pac-Man games are essentially the same, I played them both, back to back.

The premise of Pac-Man is simple. Collect the pellets, avoid the ghosts, get the best score possible. Ms Pac-Man is the same in premise, only the level layout changes every couple of levels just to mix it up.

In terms of what the Xbox One versions give you, the most notable addition is that you can restart from any level you’ve previously beaten. This is relatively pointless though if playing for a high score as the later levels are harder and you get no benefit from power pellets once you get to a certain point. I also found the Xbox One menu layout and button configuration to be clunky. This seems to be the case will all older re-releases.

Apparently, Pac-Man is supposed to be easy because the ghosts all move in a predetermined pattern but I couldn’t figure this out during my hours of gameplay so I gave up trying. I guess some people just have than knack.

Achievements – 2,000 Points – 40 Achievements

Each game carries 20 achievements and they are more or less for doing the same things in both games. A lot of achievements are awarded for eating the different kinds of fruit available and for clearing up to a certain Round. All of these are made easy with the level select function.

Things start to get tricky after this though. Both games have a requirement to what is essentially play a perfect game where you eat all fruits and 16 ghosts in the same round. There is another trick to getting this one though. You can save the game state and reload it if you fail by deleting the game save from the console and loading it back from the cloud. This is essentially the trick to use for any ‘do this thing without dying’ achievement.

I’ve read a lot of online bile about this save scumming method as a lot of people seem to consider this cheating. That’s a load of utter tosh as anything that game allows you to do is not cheating, end of. At the end of the day you actually have to complete this task and whether you do it in small stages or one go doesn’t really matter. Getting someone else to do it for you, using save downloads from other people (something you can’t do on the Xbox One) or hacking the hardware to gain advantage, is cheating. It’s not exactly a difficult line to see.

Ms Pac-Man is the same list with one exception. You have to clear two levels in a row without dying without using the warp tunnels. It’s actually easier than the main Pac-Man game in this regard.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Arcade Game Series: Pac-Man is a solid arcade game that offers nostalgia and sticks to its routes. It’s fairly enjoyable with a challenging achievement list to boot. At £3.19 each, they are pretty good value too.