PANG: Magical Michael

PANG was originally an arcade game in the 80s. It popped up again briefly in 2000 but you’d be forgiven for not really knowing of it. The game was also known as Buster Bros, and used to have two explorer characters armed with harpoons. PANG: Magical Michael certainly shows its arcade roots by taking a simple idea and then making it into an addictive monster. Rather than explorers, there’s just one magician in a snazzy purple suit armed with a magical staff. Mitchell Corporation, the team responsible for the hours you may have lost on Polarium, is behind PANG: Magical Michael so you can expect to spend little time getting into this game, but a lot of time trying to master it.

Magical Michael is happily being a magician and brewing something up in a witch’s cauldron when it all goes horribly wrong. One mismatching ingredient, and suddenly giant balloons are threatening to destroy the world! It’s up to Magical Michael to shoot the little buggers down, and save the planet’s landmarks from certain destruction.

The game plays like a cross between Space Invaders, Arkanoid and Bubble Bobble. Giant balloons of death are falling from the sky, and you have to shoot them down. They’re not just destroyed in one hit, though; the bigger balloons will need to be split multiple times before they’re in their smallest forms and will disappear with one hit, but they’re so small that it’s going to take some accuracy and skill. You also need to be careful about managing your balloons. If you start off with two giant balloons, you can’t just go shooting them in any old way because if you do, you’ll suddenly be overwhelmed with tiny little death balls bouncing all over the screen with no way for you to escape. Think of it as if you’re at the bottom of that hill in that Sony Bravia TV advert with all of those bouncy balls hurtling towards you. Furthermore, you only have one life in most modes, so there’ll be a lot of cursing before the level’s through.

There’s a neat element of reflex and sharp thinking; after all, you’ve got balloons of death raining down on you so you’ll need to be quick about deciding whether you’re going to use your magical beam like a temporary wall, or run directly underneath certain bouncing doom to deliver a shot right in the balls. Still, the gameplay and the idea are incredibly simple, since all you use are the D-Pad to move around, and the A or Y button to shoot. Even though the graphics are rather simple, the gameplay is exciting enough and some levels are cleverly designed across the two screens with multiple layers to them, separated by ladders. This adds a new dimension to the action and steps up the difficulty. Throw into the mix, destroyable, disappearing and solid blocks that may or may not yield useful powerups, and you’ll be running around trying to make the best of your shots while avoiding a top hat crushing death. You’ll need those power-ups if you want to succeed. Slow down time, shoot a wave of cards instead of a thin beam of magic, gain double shots and so on… just use every trick in the book to bring those balloons down!

The main mode is ‘Tour’ mode which has Magical Michael going to levels around the world, each one with a background of a famous landmark under threat. Clear the levels, clear the region, save the world. There is also ‘Panic’ mode which has you going through increasingly harder levels of raining balloons. Multiplayer is also available, which is quite fun to play as the more balloons you shoot, the more balloons rain down on your opponent. PANG: Magical Michael also has unlockable achievements and a global leaderboard for anyone feeling particularly competitive, although for most people just the sense of satisfaction of beating some of the very frustrating levels is probably enough.