Living in the Dtoid house with Niero, Jon Carnage, and Tara Long, with daily visits from Max Scoville, was one of the most fun times of my life. We were all such different personalities, all united under a common love of video games. Out of everyone in the place, Carnage and I were probably the oddest couple. He would passionately explain to me that Heavy Rain and Red Dead Redemption are the future of gaming almost every day. I was constantly talking to him about how Animal Crossing and Cave Story were all people needed in this world to be happy. We loved each other, but we drove each other crazy.
The one place where we came together was Pac-Man Championship Edition DX. I'd go to bed with the highest score in the house, and wake up to find he'd stayed up all night in order to take my crown. Part of the reason we bonded over the game came from our common history with the series. We both grew up with Pac-Man and knew the core tenants of the game's design philosophy. What we didn't know, at least at first, was how Pac-Man CE DX managed to expand on the most fun parts of the Pac-Man experience while cutting out most of the fat. Discovering those mechanics, and then using them to try to one-up each other, made for a perfect mix of camaraderie and competition.
Pac-Man CE 2 and Pac-Man CE 2 Plus 2P (the two games included on the Pac-Man CE 2 Plus collection, a Switch exclusive) both work to further expand on that theme, adding new mechanics, boss fights, and most importantly, two-player co-op. While Pac-Man CE DX is still my favorite Pac-Man game to date, you can bet I'll be bringing my Switch to PAX East this year, for the sole purpose of playing with Carnage in between panels. The game is overly complicated at times, but it's still neon-death, ghost-train-chomping Pac-Man, and that will be good enough for us.
via destructoid https://www.destructoid.com/pac-man-championship-edition-2-plus-is-messy-fun-490606.phtml