Namco has been mining its back catalog of classics via the Namco Museum series since the original PlayStation, so it’s doubtful that you don’t know what Namco Museum DS is all about at this point. In bringing the compilation series to Nintendo’s handheld, Namco has once again thrown together a sampling of its classics together onto one cartridge – unfortunately here that sampling is a little too small.
Quality over quantity is a worthwhile mantra though that Nintendo itself has long-touted, and to that end Namco has at least packed this cartridge with some pretty good games. The full lineup includes:
- Pac-Man Vs.
- Galaxian
- Pac-Man
- Galaga
- Xevious
- Mappy
- The Tower of Druaga
- Dig Dug II
The only real stinker in that lineup: The Tower of Druaga. The Tower of Druaga is a plodding Gauntlet-style action game, only without the excitement, basic strategy, or interesting visuals. I futilely played it over…and over…and over again trying to “get it” and just couldn’t – it’s simply not a good game and doesn’t belong in a collection like this. If this were a real museum, The Tower of Druaga would be the artifact in the little display case in the corner, with inadequate track lighting and ¾” dust covering it.
The rest of the games are more deserving of course, particularly Museum staples Pac-Man and Galaga. Galaxian is the predecessor to Galaga, and while both of them are Space Invaders style shooters there’s little reason to play it when Galaga is on the same cartridge. Galaga offers better visuals, more variety in enemy patterns, and more enemy types, giving an owner of this cartridge little reason to play Galaxian.
Xevious, Mappy, and Dig Dug II are all solid additions. Xevious is the classic top-down shooter, revolutionary for its time as you could shoot enemies both in the air and bomb them on the ground at the same time. Mappy is a quirky platformer, where you control a police mouse that collects things while using trampolines to hop up to several different levels and avoid enemies. I had never played it before this collection and actually enjoyed it quite a bit, although general opinion seems to be mixed overall on it. Finally, Dig Dug II is the sequel to Namco’s classic dig-a-thon, with a new overhead perspective offering up new challenges (such as collapsing areas of an island taking the enemies out with it) but not as fond memories.
The last piece of this collection is Pac-Man Vs., which is a retooling of the GCN/GBA experiment co-jointly developed by Namco and Nintendo and bundled with several Namco GameCube titles a few years ago. Allowing wireless play for up to four players, three players control the ghosts while one controls Pac-Man. The player using Pac-Man can see the relative positions of all four players on the board, whereas Ghost players only see a limited 3D view of their own positions. It’s a unique game, and while not a classic title per se is definitely a nice bonus.
Namco Bandai teamed up with the same team, M2, that helped bring Konami Classic Series: Arcade Hits to the DS, and the result is another feature-laden classic compilation. Every game can be played using multiple aspect ratios, including playing with the DS turned on its side to mimic the original tall arcade cabinets of yore. There are also music libraries, galleries with artwork from instruction cards and other game-related paraphernalia, general descriptions, high score saves, and the ultra groovy dip switch board layouts for configuring “hardcore” options. The team definitely knows how to do presentation right, which is very important in bring an extra sense of nostalgia and care to a collection like this. Namco Museum DS goes above and beyond what I expect out of a classics compilation in terms of extras, particularly since this is a handheld game.
Bottom Line:
Despite the awesome presentation, having a mere eight titles in Namco Museum DS is a bit of a disappointment. Pac-Man and Galaga are the only two obvious classics, and the overall roster is a little thin even with the inclusion of Pac-Man Vs. Namco has always carefully meted out its back catalog to milk as many Museum installments as possible out of each platform, and that forward thinking has clearly hurt this collection with the absence of true classics like Ms. Pac-Man.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 6.5 |
Posted: 2008-06-09 08:02:42 PST