Namco Museum is a collection of old arcade games made by Namco, packaged together in one game (think Game & Watch Gallery, only that these are the original versions, not new ones). The version I am reviewing is the Gameboy Advance version; I do not know the similarities or differences to the ones available on consoles.
This Review is based on the typical 0-4 star scale. No stars is as bad as it gets and four stars is as good as it gets (except in the difficulty department, which goes from easy to hard).
Graphics: *½
The graphics are exactly the way they were in their arcade versions, from what I can tell. That means that they aren’t very good, though they’re not supposed to be, really. Still, I’m not giving out a good rating to arcade games that look terrible just because they were made a long time ago. They don’t matter much in this game.
Sound: **
There is a nice tune at the beginning of the Pole Position game, and some good ones in the Ms. Pac-Man game. Other than those, this game doesn’t offer much in terms of good sound effects, with the Ms. Pac-Man chomping and the other outdated sound effects not really adding much to the game.
Difficulty:
Ms. Pac-Man: **
Pole Position: ***½
Dig Dug: **½
Galaga: *½
Galaxian: *½
Ms. Pac-Man is very similar to Pac-Man, only with different mazes added on, with about an average level of difficulty. Dig Dug is a bit harder as you try to inflate enemies and blow them up, but avoid getting hit by them (it can be hard to judge the timing of your enemies’ movement, thus leading to deaths). Galaga and Galaxian are very similar games where you simply shoot enemies that shoot at you, sort of like Space Invaders, though your enemies move in much different patterns.
As for Pole Position, it is by far the hardest game. It can be incredibly difficult just to qualify for the race, which you do by completing a lap in a certain amount of time (you may have to cheat by adjusting the settings to give yourself more time if you want a good chance at qualifying). Then you have to win the race, which is several laps, either three or four (depending on your choice). Avoiding crashing into other cars and signs on the side of the road can be quite difficult.
Controls: ***½
They don’t get much easier than this, your simple A button and control pad controls, although Pole Position requires you to press the R button in order to shift up in order to go faster, which I didn’t know about for a while (since it was my sister’s game, I didn’t have the instructions). No shifting up, little chance at winning. Oh yeah, the B button is brake in Pole Position. That’s about it for the controls. Simple, unless you don’t have the instructions.
Gameplay:
Ms. Pac-Man: ***
Pole Position: **
Dig Dug: **
Galaga: **
Galaxian: **
I’ll start with the best: Ms. Pac-Man is by far the best game of the bunch. It’s like Pac-Man, but with more mazes, and moving fruit. You go around in the maze, try to eat all the dots while avoiding ghosts, and of course you can eat ghosts for a short period of time after you eat a big dot. It’s much better than the rest.
Pole Position is a racing game, and the main goal is to avoid other cars and stay on the track (in order to avoid signs on the side of the road). Like Cruisin’ USA and your average arcade racer, the goal is to make it around the track before time runs out (during the race, you’ll get bonus time added on). It’s a pretty difficult game, and quite frustrating at times, but it can be interesting for a while.
Dig Dug is a game where you dig around in this big area of dirt, trying to get close to your opponents to inflate them until they explode. They can kill you if they touch you. How come you can do anything in this game, then? They can’t go through dirt, though they can go through dug-through areas. That’s the only reason why you can actually kill your opponents, as you have to sneak up on them. It gets harder as levels go on, to the point that you can’t do much and you’ll just get sick of it. Early on, though, it can be okay.
Galaxian and Galaga are very similar, so I’ll explain them together like this: you shoot enemy spaceships before they shoot you, and you don’t want to run into them. It’s that simple. It can be all right for a while, but way too repetitive.
Overall, the games all are like this: fun for a short amount of time (Ms. Pac-Man the longest), and then they get old, and boring. They all follow the same pattern.
Replayability: *
This game gets boring, and repetitive, and old, quite quickly. Except for Ms. Pac-Man, you’ll have little reason to play any one game for very long at all, unless you really want to beat it, as I did with Pole Position. It does have five different games, which is a plus.
Fun Factor!: ½
This game is really missing any sort of fun factor. Not even Ms. Pac-Man can be called really “fun”, just entertaining. Considering they don’t last long and are mainly just your boring “high score” games (no real ending to the game, except for Pole Position), where all you’re trying to do is get a high score, you won’t really enjoy this game all that much.
OVERALL: **
On the whole, though, this game is just about average, given that it does include five games, and if you get bored of one, you can move on to the other. It gets a higher rating than what I gave Pac-Man for the NES (one star), because Pac-Man on its own got boring too quickly. With five different games, however, this game can at least entertain you enough to make it worth an average rating. It is not worth paying a lot for, though $10 or less would probably make it worthwhile, especially for a portable version.
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