Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 1.5 stars Poor
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 3.7 (1.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Giancarlo Varanini
• Reviewed on: 11/08/2001
• Released on: 10/12/2001
• Originally published on GameSpot: Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze (PC) Review

Pac-Man: Adventures in Time, which was released about a year ago, brought the classic arcade game character into uncharted territory with its creative 3D level design and platforming elements. Now, Pac-Man's better half has her own new game too. But unlike in previous examples from the Pac-Man series, Ms. Pac-Man doesn't follow in Pac-Man's footsteps. In fact, Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze marks a return to the old-fashioned maze-ridden pellet chomping of the original arcade game, right down to the same basic level design. Ultimately, it all adds up to a monotonous gaming experience that's difficult to recommend even to those looking for a little nostalgia.

Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze offers two basic modes of play--a single-player campaign and a bare-bones hotseat multiplayer mode. In the single-player mode, you'll have to chomp your way through several levels, each of which has three or so sublevels. As in the original Ms. Pac-Man, your only purpose here is to eat all the pellets in a particular level before moving on to the next, all the while avoiding the same persistent group of ghost monsters found in previous Pac-Man games. Of course, you still have access to power pellets, which make ghost monsters temporarily vulnerable to Ms. Pac-Man's chomp, but you also have opportunities to grab special power-ups that can give Ms. Pac-Man more speed or even a magnetic effect that attracts pellets. These power-ups, which are uncovered by eating one of the smaller ghost monsters that roams around the maze, appear fairly often, making the game much less difficult than it probably should be. This is Ms. Pac-Man's most substantial flaw.

While the difficulty of the game is artificially increased by the time it takes to adjust to keyboard controls, there's virtually no challenge in Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze. Both novice and experienced Pac-Man players should be able to waltz through the single-player mode in less than an hour. Even at the hardest difficulty setting, the game lacks any serious challenge because the ghost monsters' artificial intelligence is simply too poor and poses no serious threat to a Pac-Man player who doesn't waste power pellets or power-ups.

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