Namco Museum Volume 1 (”N”)
The Game: Old games never die - they get emulated. Fortunately, one of Japan’s greatest exporters of video game hits has built a museum around several of its most popular titles. With Pac-Man at your side, you wander the corridors of the Namco Museum, where you may examine classic video game sales brochures, promotional items, posters, and the arcade cabinets themselves - which contain, naturally, the actual games. (Namco, 1995)
Memories: A fantastic idea in a so-so package, Namco Museum’s first volume on the Playstation is a mixture of picture-perfect emulations and a not-so-perfect framing structure. The thought of all the extra material is great in theory - and it has turned out to be one of the “compelling applications” for the DVD format. But in Namco Museum, these nifty ephemera from the 80s are presented to you as exhibits in clumsily bit-mapped hallways and rooms which aren’t even as convincing graphically as the Windows 95 “maze” screen saver. (Read more about this game…)
Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position II and Dig Dug are probably the main reasons this volume has seen such wide distribution and a reprint run. The game emulations are good, but once again, I have to complain about the distracting border graphics on Ms. Pac-Man…couldn’t the game have been emulated more like Dig Dug, with the score display shifted to the side of the screen, and the maze given a larger portion of the total screen area? This problem also plagues Pac-Man on Volume 1, and I never quite figured out why these games - surely the best-remembered of any of the games on their respective volumes of Namco Museum - got this graphic treatment.
Volume 3 sees some major improvements in other areas, however. One can skip such sections as the miserably bitmapped 3-D “museum” and jump directly to such features as the jukebox (in which one can look at character graphics and listen to music and sound effects) and individual games. There are also drop-down menus in each emulation which allow for a quick and easy exit. These features - and, quite frankly, the ability to skip through most of the slow-loading museum scenes - make Volume 3 a large leap for the Namco Museum series.
One, however, should go through the various museum exhibits at least once, if only for the opportunity to see Dig Dug’s Pookas dancing around to a hip-hop beat in a rock quarry (!), or Ms. Pac-Man and her Pac-Puppy dancing (and singing!) to a jaunty rendition of the music from her game’s second intermission scene. It’s actually a bit surreal. The Galaxian room is actually pretty cool - as one floats toward the arcade cabinet in a corner of the room, a huge 3-D rendition of the player’s ship rises up on a launch 
pad in the background and undergoes a pre-flight check before blasting off!
The Game: Old games never die - they get emulated. Fortunately, one of Japan’s greatest makers of video game hits has built a museum around several of its most popular titles. With Pac-Man still underfoot, you wander the corridors of the Namco Museum yet again. (Namco, 1995, for Sony Playstation)
The Game: Three obscure but memorable cult classics from Japan’s Nichibutsu Ltd. are gathered in one collection, along with an updated version of each game. Crazy Climber, Moon Cresta and Frisky Tom are included, with their respective remakes, Crazy Climber ‘85, SF-X and Tom’s Strike-Back. (Nichibutsu Ltd., 1995)
The Game: Three of the most popular games from Namco’s arcade heyday are brought back in the ’90s, both in their original forms and in “remixed” versions with updated sound and graphics and tweaks to the game play. Pac-Man Arrangement adds power-ups, new mazes, new graphics and a whole new breed of 
The Game: All aboard! Now departing the Namco Museum aboard the spaceship Game Space Milaiya. Namco’s retrospective series literally takes off for its final ride on the Playstation with a collection of seven games, from the earliest days of Namco’s video game empire to more recent arcade titles. (Namco, 1997 - for Playstation)
The Game: You’re the pilot of a ground-based mobile weapons platform, and there are buttloads of alien meanies headed right for you. Your only defense is a trio of shields which are degraded by any weapons fire - yours or theirs - and a quick trigger finger. Occasionally a mothership zips across the top of the screen. When the screen is cleared of invaders, another wave - faster and more aggressive - appears. When you’re out of “lives,” or when the aliens manage to land on Earth… it’s all over. (Taito, 1997, for Playstation)
The Game: 25 choice cuts of Intellivision goodness are crammed into something about the size of a modern-day console controller. Games include Astrosmash, Body Slam Super Pro Wrestling, Buzz Bombers, Chip Shot Super Pro 
Memories: After I reviewed the dandy Techno Source Intellivision 25-in-1 TV Game, at least one e-mail suggested that I wasn’t being critical enough in my review. I praised that dandy self-contained gadget for capturing the flavor of those 25 classic Intellivision games, even if a lot of the finer details were left out. Those of you who thought I was going easy on that game should just stop reading this review now. Because I kinda dig this quintet of Namco goodness - with some significant reservations. 
