Got the PS2 version of this compilation today from Tronix, and had a bit of a play this evening.
The pack has 16 Namco arcade games on it, most of which are available in at least one of the previous Namco collections. The complete game list is:
Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man
Galaga
Galaxian
Dig Dug
Rally-X
Pole Position
Pole Position II
Xevious
Dragon Spirit
Bosconian
Rolling Thunder
Mappy
Sky Kid
Galaga '88
Pac Mania
The last two are initially locked, and need to be unlocked by getting high scores in some of the other games.
The emulation (by Digital Eclipse) seems to be pretty solid. Like most recent retro packs, the games are all scaled up to a high resolution, rather than using the PS2's low res mode. Vertical games have black bars at the left and right, rather than having the rearranged screen layout that some previous Namco packs used. There's no rotated screen mode to view them on a real vertical display. Screen mode options are limited to being able to adjust the scaling a bit. There's not even a screen centring option.
Although the games themselves are fine, the pack as a whole seems a bit half-hearted. We've seen the vast majority of these games on many retro packs before, and it'd be nice to see Namco offering some different games for a change. Just how many copies of Pac-Man, Galaxian and Rally-X does somebody really need?
There's also nothing that really justifies the "Museum" part of the name. None of the history or museum stuff from the PS1 packs is included. The front end is pretty minimal, really. Just 3D models of the arcade machines with a few tacked-on 80s music tracks (I'm not sure what the point of the music is, as you can't listen to it in-game, and it's not like you're going to sit on the game select screen for long).
That said, it does only cost $20 and there're a few games (like Galaga '88 and Rolling Thunder) that haven't been made widely available before, at least not outside of Japan, so it's not a bad pack for the price. I just wish Namco would stop releasing the same games over and over and give us some retro packs with the range and variety of the recent Taito collections.
The pack has 16 Namco arcade games on it, most of which are available in at least one of the previous Namco collections. The complete game list is:
Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man
Galaga
Galaxian
Dig Dug
Rally-X
Pole Position
Pole Position II
Xevious
Dragon Spirit
Bosconian
Rolling Thunder
Mappy
Sky Kid
Galaga '88
Pac Mania
The last two are initially locked, and need to be unlocked by getting high scores in some of the other games.
The emulation (by Digital Eclipse) seems to be pretty solid. Like most recent retro packs, the games are all scaled up to a high resolution, rather than using the PS2's low res mode. Vertical games have black bars at the left and right, rather than having the rearranged screen layout that some previous Namco packs used. There's no rotated screen mode to view them on a real vertical display. Screen mode options are limited to being able to adjust the scaling a bit. There's not even a screen centring option.
Although the games themselves are fine, the pack as a whole seems a bit half-hearted. We've seen the vast majority of these games on many retro packs before, and it'd be nice to see Namco offering some different games for a change. Just how many copies of Pac-Man, Galaxian and Rally-X does somebody really need?
There's also nothing that really justifies the "Museum" part of the name. None of the history or museum stuff from the PS1 packs is included. The front end is pretty minimal, really. Just 3D models of the arcade machines with a few tacked-on 80s music tracks (I'm not sure what the point of the music is, as you can't listen to it in-game, and it's not like you're going to sit on the game select screen for long).
That said, it does only cost $20 and there're a few games (like Galaga '88 and Rolling Thunder) that haven't been made widely available before, at least not outside of Japan, so it's not a bad pack for the price. I just wish Namco would stop releasing the same games over and over and give us some retro packs with the range and variety of the recent Taito collections.
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