Pac-Man Battle Royale now available (Pac-Man Museum)

[FritzsCorner]

It's been a long wait to finally play Pac-Man Battle Royale at home. Now that it is here I will say that I am bit disappointed.  I just purchased Pac-Man Museum for Xbox Live Arcade and when I started it up for the first time I instantly went to choose Battle Royale.  As soon as the game launched I noticed that just like all the old classic Pac-Man games, Battle Royale was also restricted to playing in a smaller window and not in full screen.  I searched high and low for an option to play it full screen but I just didn't find one. I am still hoping that I am making an obvious oversight and that there is an option but as of right now I just don't see one.  The game itself is just as amazing as it was in the arcade but not being able to play it in full screen really takes quite a bit away from the game experience.  I attached a photo of what it looks like.. Sorry for the potato quality.

[Generic Eric]

Thanks for the share.

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Why no full screen?  WTH!?
[/commentary]


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I wondered to myself if that meant it was on PC yet.  Checked steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/236470/

The PC release suffers from the same bezel nonsense.

Read comments:
Battle Royale doesn't have a multiplayer function.

Deal killer.

To steam with you folks to state your dismay and distaste!

[Ginsu Victim]

Have you tried stretching the image using your TV's image settings? Not the best option, but an option.

[ChadTower]

The people putting this in a cab could just put a bezel with art over the wasted area.

[FritzsCorner]

I just heard back from Bandai Namco support and although the response is not unexpected, it is a big letdown.

The option to run Battle Royale in "full screen" mode is not available in the game. Unfortunately, this is as-designed by the development team and there are no future plans to change this at this time. We will however, make note of your comments regarding this and forward them to the appropriate contacts on the development team for future consideration.

I am still struggling to find a reason that makes sense to me on why this would be "As Designed". 

[Generic Eric]

I just heard back from Bandai Namco support and although the response is not unexpected, it is a big letdown.

The option to run Battle Royale in "full screen" mode is not available in the game. Unfortunately, this is as-designed by the development team and there are no future plans to change this at this time. We will however, make note of your comments regarding this and forward them to the appropriate contacts on the development team for future consideration.

I am still struggling to find a reason that makes sense to me on why this would be "As Designed".

Did you point out to them it looks bad?  Seriously though, I am curious as to the wording of your inquiry.

[FritzsCorner]

Did you point out to them it looks bad?  Seriously though, I am curious as to the wording of your inquiry.

I told them that it was almost unplayable on most TV's, especially smaller screens.  I asked them for more input as to why the developers made this a design decision and this is what they got back to me with.

No, unfortunately we did not receive any such information from the development team as to why they decided to implement the features in the game for the Battle Royale title. Generally this service is mostly intended to provide limited gameplay assistance or technical/warranty support so we wouldn't really have this type of information.

I haven't even checked to see if there is online multiplayer available, but going by some of the other feedback I have seen I am guessing there isn't.  Battle Royale is such a great game and I feel that this is a huge fail by Bandai Namco. 

[SavannahLion]

I can think of two reasons.

The least sinister would be that BR runs at a different native resolution than the screen. Eg BR runs at 720 so you get a border if you use 1080. I doubt this is the case as it sounds like a lame excuse, even to me.

Or maybe it's because BR is still actively sold by Namco. The border was put there with no option to get rid of it to prevent unscrupulous operators from buying el cheapo units. I'm just speculating really.

[ChadTower]

Having done that level of support job I can tell you that answer was pretty much a slickly worded "Dude I have NO IDEA, I get paid $11/hr part time and have to close out 30 tickets an hour, now let me get back to it or I'll be fired at the end of the week."

[childsremix]

I wonder if anyone is looking at the PC version and plans to hack it to make it full screen.  I very much wanted to make a dedicated cabinet for this game alone. So disappointing.

[Howard_Casto]

I looked at it... it doesn't look too promising. 

Can it be done?  Probably.  Would anyone be willing to do it just out of the kindness of their heart?  Unlikely.

[pbj]

Would $10 change your mind?

[ChadTower]

He needs $10 to make you holla.

[Howard_Casto]

The amount of precious remaining sanity that would be whittled away working on something like this is probably worth a bit more than 10 bucks.  Hell you can't even buy the game for that. 

I wasn't hinting though, I think I've just got too many projects anymore.   

[Sjaak]

Check out the Banana Royale thread for a 4 player maze game that can run full screen...

[pbj]

Check out the Banana Royale thread for a 4 player maze game that can run full screen...

Does that actually work?  I've downloaded and extracted it on two different machines and it does nothing when I run it.

[Howard_Casto]

You did better than me.... I couldn't even find the download link.

[ark_ader]

Check out the Banana Royale thread for a 4 player maze game that can run full screen...

Does that actually work?  I've downloaded and extracted it on two different machines and it does nothing when I run it.

You have to create the character sprite map I believe.

[pbj]

Ah, so, a 1 level game that requires you to draw your own art?  Yeah, perfect substitute. 

 

[Sjaak]

Ah, so, a 1 level game that requires you to draw your own art?  Yeah, perfect substitute. 

 

Well, I just wanted to give a heads up. With a little drawing effort it could look like this:



And just 1 level is included, but it has support for adding levels using Tiled.

[ptinolv]

Yeah, the border for Battle Royale is a bit annoying. Anyone know a tool to zoom on a screen part ?

[SavannahLion]

Yeah, the border for Battle Royale is a bit annoying. Anyone know a tool to zoom on a screen part ?

Magnifier maybe? It's part of Windows so it's super easy to try it.

[ChadTower]

All these dudes, all that free pr0n out there, and nobody knows an easy way to zoom?   

[Howard_Casto]

Man it sucks when I'm having trouble like this.... stupid chest is burning so I can't sleep.

I would have to get the full game to be sure, but from what I can tell the problem is that the border is part of the game, it doesn't appear to be a smaller directx rect drawn in the center of the screen.  I've done fixes where you find the rendering rect dimensions or in the case of fix it felix, the zoom level and altered things that way, but like I said, it appears at least to be all one render area. 

Direct-x/Opengl games are really hard to magnify.  The only solution I can think of would be some sort of a rendering hook.  Maybe try a proxy dll system like SweetFX?  I mean that's all I can think of.

[jmike]

Went ahead and paid for it on XBOX Live.

Plays pretty well and yes the boarder makes no sense at all. Will snap some pics tonight.
Settings won't allow you to remove the boarder, just adjust difficulty and number of rounds.

[ChadTower]

Does it play 4 player?

[Well Fed Games]

My capacity to throw money at Namco for various re-releases and variations of Pac-Man is massive. That said:

1. the needless border around the edge of Royale, and lack of bezel options in general
2. no online play option in Royale. Seriously?
3. the fact that the included Championship Edition is not the DX upgrade (which I already own, but the principle of it pisses me off)

...make Museum no-buy for me, at least until it is $5 or less on sale. 

Would have also loved some sort of multiplayer cooperative blend of Royale + CE.

[jmike]

Does it play 4 player?

Yes, you can play 4-players.


Also Ms Pac-man is available for free as an Ad-on.  (until the end of the month)

[jmike]

Decided to set this up on my projector since that boarder takes up too much space on my TV.
 (Excuse the crappy cell phone pics).
First pic has the lights on but as you can see from the other two pics the image is more clear with the lights off. Really a fun game when you have all 4 pacman playing.