| Namco Museum review |
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Remember the Neo Geo Pocket? Damn, that machine had some great games. SNK v Capcom, Cardfighters Clash, Megaman Power Battle... at the end of the day, though, the thing had one basic purpose. It was a handheld Pac-Man emulator - arcade-perfect Pac-Man... on the bus. Oh yeaaaaaaaah. With the arrival of Namco Museum for the PSP, however, the need to take two bottles into the shower has evaporated like the morning dew. Now we have beautiful-looking, arcade-perfect Pac-Man on a stunning backlit screen with the ability to customise the display to original, stretch to screen and even rotated 90 degrees in order to utilise the PSP's entire glory (and look damn silly holding it on its end).
So much for the bells and whistles, though. Let's get down to the games. Namco Museum features eleven titles, and while we'll go into the somewhat odd choices present later, let's at least say for now that there are no stinkers on this disc (astonishingly rare for a Namco compilation). First up is Pac-Man, famous for two reasons: firstly it fathered the stealth genre (no matter what Konami say about Metal Gear being the first game where you had to avoid rather than kill enemies), and secondly its AI programming was way ahead of its time. The player must clear a maze inhabited by four ghosts, each of which has its own behaviour script; one will go outright for the kill, one is fast but a little sketchy, one will tend to run away and one is just plain nuts. It's a simple but incredibly powerful mix that leads to many lives needlessly lost because of frayed nerves and calamitous doubling back (and therefore a high level of addiction).
This is followed by the sequel, Ms Pac-Man, which introduces some superficial new features like fruit that runs away from you, but the meat of the product comes down to the new level designs (Pac-Man has only one level) and the superior AI programming. While the enemy behaviour in Pac-Man was impressive, the algorithms would always react to the same player actions in the same way. It was thus possible to manipulate the monsters by learning patterns (such as the GET, the Ninth Key and the legendary Donut Dazzler) that would keep Pac in safe spots for most of the level. Ms Pac-Man cannot be patterned, and is thus a vastly superior score attack game. Oh yeah, and she has a bow. Sorry to point it out, but a review without a Wayne's World reference is like a day without sunshine.
Next up? DigDug! The prequel to Mister Driller (DigDug himself is Taizo Hori, Susumu's father), DigDug involves drilling through earth in order to blow monsters up with a footpump until they comedically burst. Extra points can be gained by artistically digging tunnels which bunch the monsters together, then dropping a big rock on them. It's a cute and appealing title, spoiled not so much by time as by the fact that it was no bloody good in the first place. The programming is poor, meaning it is TERRIBLE for being a "patterns" game, and a ridiculous hole in the game design makes it possible to kill an enemy in less than a second by alternating the joystick and fire button rapidly. It's also one of those games which, like Mario Brothers, just stops getting more difficult after a while so once the top of the curve has been hit you can play forever (if mentally deficient). Oh well. At least Taizo's gone on to better things.
Moving on, we come to the shooters - and where better to start than Galaga? Possibly the greatest Space Invaders-style game ever written, Galaga combined more fantastic features than any of its ilk should be allowed. Smooth movement, satisfying explosions, varied gameplay, memorable music... however, what Galaga is really remembered for is its amazing powerup system. The toughest monsters at the top of the screen could zip down at any time and attempt to steal your ship. This would result in the loss of a life, but if you then skillfully shot them away the ship would fall back down, allowing you to recapture it - whereupon you would be in command of twice the firepower. It was this freedom, this "Sod it, give me all my lives now, I can take 'em" mentality that makes Galaga such a fan favourite. Two thumbs up - and we all know that they don't like it up 'em.
Also bundled into the pack is Galaxians. Galaxians is like Galaga's doddering grandfather. It's certainly one for the hardcore shooter crowd, as it possesses the stately speed and accuracy of Invaders (not to mention the same sound effects) but the frenetic diving enemy attacks of Galaga thus simultaneously giving the impression of being somewhat dull and ludicrously intimidating. Love it or leave it, it's certainly nice to see it in here (despite being overshadowed by Galaga) simply because whether you realise it or not it's such a part of the gamer consciousness. We defy anyone who was around the arcades in the '80s to boot this up and listen to the "Ppssssh! Ppsssh! WEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-OW!" noises without feeling SOMETHING.
This brings us to the last and most problematic choices of the compilation - Rally X. It's never really set the world on fire, has this one. For those on the outside, RX is a super-fast game of Pac-Man set on a giant playfield. Because you only have about half a second to get out of the way of oncoming cars, the game gives you a radar which displays your position, the positions of the other cars and the locations of the flags which need to be passed before your fuel (which can be burned to smokescreen the opponents) runs out. The game is thus a balancing act between checking the radar and trying not to smack into the obstacles, and believe you me it's harder than it sounds. For the score attack crowd there are two special items to be found, and a bonus for the number of flags passed without roadmash trauma taking place. The lucky flag gives you a larger bonus the quicker it is found, and the special flag doubles the value of every award.
Then there's New Rally X. Now, don't get us wrong here. NRX is a superior game in every respect. The difficulty curve is better, the music is better, the special flag is now marked on the map... it's RX with about 60% of the annoying taken out of it. The question remains, however - all the other genres on Namco Museum have significant differences between each game, but this is just the same game with a few tweaks. Why? We smell insincerity here, and Namco definitely smell money if they think they can get away with putting three versions of Rally X in the same kaboodle.
Three? Yes, that's right. Now we come to the "Arranged" versions of the game. Spanking new incarnations of Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaga and New Rally X are the gatecrashers, and when we say new we mean because these are NOT the versions to be found on the Namco Classics JAMMA machines. They sport better animation, rendering, new gameplay and cutscenes and even the odd bit of 3D. NRX Arrangement is actually a very good place to start, being, as it is... er... very good. Superficially the music is better and the blank walls of the original have been replaced by sumptuously designed skyscrapers that zoom past in 3D. What really makes a difference, though, is the little extra touches of polish and design that have gone into this remake - such as the comedy sound effects, the addition of an accelerator button and the inclusion of different terrains such as sand which causes your car to drift semi-realistically on turns. All in all, it makes Rally X seem much more like a comedy "BEEP BEEP! GET OFF THE ROAD, LOSERS!" (Crash) fun kind of experience, which is probably what the original programmers intended.
Another goodie is Pac-Man Arrangement. PMA takes the original's gameplay and builds on it instead of messing with it like previous Namco spinoffs have done. Doors, speedup pads and teleports all play a part in the new maps (as do intelligent level design and a well thought out difficulty curve), but at the end of the day Pac is Pac - you get caught by the ghosts, Peter Venkmann ain't gonna save your yellow derriere. Maybe you're a purist, but if you're the kind of person who liked the variety and solid gameplay of Ms Pac-Man but loathed the slapdash way in which Pac-Mania killed you off with gleeful spite for trying to get a high score, then you'll get a lot out of this title.
Moving down the quality scale a little, we have Galaga Arrangement. Slick graphics and smooth animation are the order of the day here, but for reasons that the historians of future generations will have to fathom, the powerup system has been totally altered - it doesn't strip away lives and it just powers up when a manoeuvre is completed. It's always been an utter mystery why Namco don't just rerelease Galaga 88 - the game was an unutterable masterpiece which presented selectable routes, easter eggs and fantastic variety without ever straying from the original gameplay. On the subject of Galaga 88, the Galactic Dancing subgame returns but without anywhere near the hilarious execution of the 88 version (or the phrase "THAT IS GALACTIC DANCING"). Shame.
Finally we have Dig Dug Arrangement, the most inexplicably terrible product in the whole pack. It's not that it's a bad game per se - certainly no worse than the original. It's just that the game called Dig Dug Arrangement which appeared in the Namco Classics 2 arcade board was brilliant. Stellar, even. It featured fast gameplay, wonderfully designed puzzles and some gloriously cheesy oppurtunities to set a boulder rolling and squash everything on the screen before the level even started - if you could only figure out which panels of earth to dig. The PSP version, while featuring some eye-blisteringly gorgeous animation (as the bad guys are pumped fuller and fuller of air) seems to have been sucked dry of the speed, fun and addictive qualities that made the arcade version so playable. Adding different bosses which are no fun to kill and which sport laughable collision detection certainly doesn't help.
So there you have it. Namco Museum - it's (almost) all good. With a fantastic clutch of Pac, two great shooters, Dig Dug, and the bizarre inclusion of THREE Rally X games, there's no way that any Namco fan is going to feel gypped out of the budget-level asking price. The only quibble to make is that it would have been nice to see a proper museum section such as was in original volumes - after all, it would have taken no effort to shove some informative text files or JPEGs of the game marquees (or whatever) onto the disk as an afterthought, and it would have been greatly appreciated. All in all, though, a strong start. Let's see a Volume Two - the sooner we get through all the dross, the sooner we get Rolling Thunder. |
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System: Sony PlayStation Portable
Genre: Arcade
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
Players: 1-2
Version: Japan
Reviewed: Mar 2005
Writer: Simon Dominguez
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Cons:
- Great games
- Great features
- Great variety
- Great value
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Cons:
- More fanservice would have been nice
- Surely nobody likes Rally X THAT much?
- No Tower of Druaga!
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