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
still underfoot, you wander the corridors of the Namco Museum yet again.
(Namco, 1995)
The second volume (also known as Volume A) in Namco's 5-disc collection
of arcade emulations for the Playstation is the most difficult to find
- one often sees it going for nearly twice its original retail price in
eBay auctions - and yet it has some of Namco's biggest "cult" hits...
and yet only volumes 1 and 3 have been reprinted. Go
figure.
Super Pac-Man, the oddball Pac-Man sequel, is the yellow one's presence on
Volume 2. Other well-known - though not mega-hit - games on Volume 2 include
Mappy (the game with the bouncing police
mouse), Xevious (which was, in all honesty,
emulated much better on Namco's own later Playstation release Xevious 3D/G+). Also included here is a Galaga sequel called Gaplus - a game I'd
never heard of before picking up Volume 2.
Gaplus is a damned difficult little game. It takes the basic premise
of Galaga - wave after wave of alien attackers swooping into
formation and then diving toward the bottom of the screen, raining
lethal firepower down upon the hapless player. I like Xevious and
Mappy just fine, but I spend most of my Volume 2 play time with
Gaplus, simply trying to beat the bloody thing. I haven't even
gotten to the Challenging Stage yet. Oh, if only the dual analog
joystick had been around back then...
Like Volume 1, Volume 2's "museum" is a slow-to-load, chunkily
bitmapped 3-D environment with the same somnolent tune droning in the
background. The "rooms" in which one can find the actual
"machines" are a little more bizarre this time, particularly the
Xevious room (what the...? I can't even describe it!) and the
Gaplus room, which seems to be enclosed in the alien boss ship's capture
beam.
I will give Namco a little bit of credit - the "exhibits" one sees
en route to the actual games are a little more interesting. There's more
actual game artwork and memorabilia, though the bitmapped circuit
boards still uselessly adorn the halls.
If you can get your hands on Volume 2 without spending a fortune, I
can heartily recommend it, if only for the outstanding emulations of
Mappy and Gaplus, the latter of which only very recently joined
the fold of games emulated by MAME.
Rating:
Three quarters - worth repeat play, but with some annoying features that
might alienate less patient arcade veterans.
Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster
Three quarters - worth repeat play, but with some annoying features that
might alienate less patient arcade veterans.
