Namco Museum Remix - For Fans of the Oldies

[sean.aaron]

First my pedigree: I can recall the first game I could play, it was the first time I ever saw a video game outside of a bar and was at the nearby 7-11: Space Invaders. Within a couple of years there were video arcades and games were in colour with voice samples and all manner of different control schemes. I definitely enjoy the classics and I'm hoping we see more classic compilations like this in future.

In recent years some of the purveyors of these old arcade games have seen fit to repackage them into "Greatest Hits" collections. Namco first had their Museum series on the original Playstation in a series of six volumes (cleverly one for each letter of the name "Namco" and then a Japanese-only Museum R that came with a big album to put the other volumes into).

Namco Museum Remix is a further repackaging with five of the fourteen games in the collection re-imagined in 3-D and with motion controls specific to the Wii.

I was originally going to give this a pass given that I have MAME OS X on my Mac and the remix idea wasn't grabbing me, however, the Wii has become the centre of my gaming universe and I haven't fired up MAME in over 7 months. Aside from this I now have a TV big enough that the centre portion of the TV where is as large as an old arcade vertical monitor, and therefore the lure was baited and taken.

In the original Namco museum series you controlled a Pac-Man equipped with arms and legs and walked about a virtual museum to various sections. Given the Playstation's double-speed CD-ROM drive this was a very tedious exercise and volumes after "N" allowed jumping straight into the games from the title screen. Namco Museum Remix loads quickly and has a greatly simplified interface which is still free-roaming, consisting of a courtyard with central fountain and game areas represented by buildings surrounding it. Pac-Man is a ball with a face and rolls around like a severed head using the analogue stick on the Nunchuk. The full controls used in the Pac 'n' Roll game are present so it's kind of a practice area for that game with dots littered about to eat. Some of the dots can be challenging to get, but getting them all doesn't give you anything, so don't sweat getting them all.

The classic arcade games are in the Carnival Arcade Building and inside you will find a bunch of mini arcade cabinets with shapes appropriate to the game in question; all at Pac-Man's height. Rolling in front of one causes a semi-translucent display to come up showing the different control schemes available for the game along with its name and an invite to press "A" to play it. Moving away causes this display to disappear, so there's no loading of menus to exit and you can quickly move from game to game. Brilliant, simple and intuitive. The classic arcade games are as follows: Pac & Pal (a weird Pac-Man game I never heard of until MAME which I'm surprised is here), Super Pac-Man, Cutie-Q (a pinball/breakout game not released outside of Japan in a compilation -- it was on the "A" volume of the original museum series and replaced with Super Pac-Man outside of Japan), Xevious, Mappy, Galaxian, Gaplus, Dig Dug and Pac Mania.

All of these games are ports, so purists please note that you won't see boot screens and there's no inserting of coins (or their sound effects) or pressing of start buttons unlike the original Museum series. It's not terrible, but some of us like that sort of thing. Having said that these ports are quite good and I couldn't tell the difference between these and the real thing. Each game has a submenu where you can choose difficulty by modifying the extra life settings; you can disable sound in attract mode or listen to the various sound effects via a sound test (a nice added feature). Lastly, you can change the positioning and aspect-ratio of the games. Most of these were with vertical monitors, so on a widescreen display you get some nice simulated bezel art surrounding your game screen which I think is fine, but it's always nice to have options!

The classics all control with one of three control schemes: nunchuk (without exception these are all games that use a joystick and one or two buttons), wiimote on its side (my preference) or Classic controller (a bit overkill for me; I'd rather unplug the nunchuk than swap it out and back again for the Classic controller). Note that navigating the in-game menu assumes you're using the controller with game orientation, so up-down maps to left-right on the d-pad on the wiimote. Nunchuk/wiimote controls are enabled simultaneously, so you can switch back and forth to find which works best.

Unlike the original museum series there's no reams of statistics on your play to date, but it does save your high scores (unlike the 50th anniversary museum collection on GBA, grrrr).

The remix games are as follows: Gator Panic, Pac 'N' Roll, Galaga, Rally-X, Pac Motos.

Gator Panic is like Whack a Mole except that you're defending a turtle and the gators come out of holes towards him and try to bite him. The hammer is moved by the analogue stick and a downward movement with the wiimote brings it down on the gator's head. The game is timed and points are scored for every hit. There's a multiplayer mode where up to four people can have a go at whacking gator heads. It gets quite frenetic towards the end, but not a terribly deep game by any means.

Pac 'N' Roll is a 3-D Pac-Man game like Pac Mania. Unlike Pac Mania, you're not in a maze, you roll rather than glide, you don't have to eat all the dots to progress and you can control the camera. Pac-Man rolls through various levels eating enough dots to get past a gatekeeper at the end. You can move pretty much everywhere and have some additional controls beyond the stick: A or B will put on the breaks which is handy when going up ramps and the like and a quick wiimote waggle gives you a shot of speed which helps flying up the ramps or over the platforms in different parts. Your old enemies/food the ghosts are about as are power pellets. You can be hit three times before dying. There are also a couple of costumes with environmental effects: a metal armour helmet that allows you to break metal crates and sink to the bottom of water and a winged helmet that causes you to drift to earth after vaulting into the air. There are multiple worlds subdivided into stages to go through with the game automatically saving between each stage so you can stop and come back at any time and the occasional boss fight to spice things up. Good stuff and more in the spirit of the original Pac-Man game than the 3D platformers from the late 90s.

Galaga is effectively an on-rails shooting game. It's much shorter than I would have liked: three worlds culminating in a tricky boss fight, but it's quite fun and features simultaneous multi-player where you can all shoot space bugs. Pac-Man rolls along a half-pipe through treacherous alien worlds and you have to shoot down the galagas threatening him. Shoot with A or B (hold for a brief bit of autofire) and if necessary push up on the analogue stick so Pac-Man can jump to avoid the odd missile. A really clever re-imagining of the original game.

Rally-X is basically New Rally-X, but 3D with Pac-Man at the wheel of the go-kart; like other remix titles, multiple players can have a go and this apparently supports Miis as well. There is an alternate motion-controlled interface option using the wiimote on it's side, but I've not read good things about it and the analogue stick does just fine. C gives you a burst of speed and A releases the signature smoke cloud. Try to get all the flags with the odd special level where you need to get the flags in numbered order and sometimes featuring two opposing racers (instead of one) who will try to ram you into oblivion. It's not Mario Kart, but it's not a race either -- it's Rally-X! I quite enjoy this one and haven't reached the end yet. The arcade game was fun, but I definitely think this is an improvement.

Pac Motos is an updating of the classic Motos, which appeared in Namco Museum R in Japan, and I'd be surprised if it was released outside of Japan in the arcades. You control Pac-Man and try to ram other things off of a floating platform before they push you off -- kind of like Sumo wrestling! As with other remix games there's a multiplayer option available. Pac-Man doesn't roll in this game, but maintains and upright posture -- so he can better shove balls and such off the ledges. As the clock ticks parts of the ground will disappear at random, so not one to take your time with. There are upgrades that are the ones from Pac 'N' Roll with different effects: the winged helmet allows for jumping and the metal helmet for a build-up of ramming damage. There's another power up for general strength as well. These things are picked up on the playfield as tickets which you can use for the next round. Probably best to save them for the boss fights that end every world. Like Rally-X, Pac 'N' Roll and Galaga, Pac Motos keeps separate stats for each stage and auto-saves after each stage so you can easily quit and come back or play through any bit you like.

The remix titles show a good amount of work and aren't just tarted-up versions of the originals, but add to the classic gameplay. The classics are still there and for me are worth the price of admission and are a great slice of early Japanese arcade history. The original versions Pac-Man, Galaga, Rally-X and Motos are absent, but hopefully we'll see a sequel to this collection in the future with remixed versions of games from this collection. Namco certainly has the back catalogue to do it! For fourteen arcade games, I think it's a good deal at £24.99 and well worth it for people who like a little diversion now and then from the latest 40+ hour RPG.

[hillyjo13]

great review there mate ive been uming and ahring (hope that make sense ) about getting this collection as im a massive retro fan! some of the games looked great others not so but if i find a copy for the right price i think i might invest

[sean.aaron]

I got this at GAME for £24.99; with two trade-ins I ended up paying less than £2 cash which I thought was a great deal.