Customer Reviews

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is definitely a nostalgia trip.

Even if you have the other museum titles it's worthwhile to pick this one up. Galaga 88 is the reason why you need this game. Galaga 88 is worth the price of admission alone. Also packaged are some other great titles (although almost all of them are already in other museum titles). You get:

Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man
Pac-Mania
Galaga
Galaga 88
Galaxian
Dig Dug
Pole Position
Pole Position II
Rolling Thunder
Rally X
Bosconian
Dragon Spirit
Sky Kid
Xevious
Mappy

Most of these games are great. A few of them I don't play very much namely Rally X (just never got into this one I guess) Pac-Mania and Mappy. A lot of people don't like Sky Kid, but I love that game.

If you don't have any of the Namco Museum games then you definitely need to pick this up!

There are a few downsides though. The games are great of coarse and they're all restored to their original goodness, but Namco sure didn't do much to celebrate their 50th anniversary. No history, no interviews, none of that. The only *bonus* you get is you can unlock Pac-Mania and Galaga 88 if you can get a high enough score in Pac-Man and Ms Pac Man and if you get a high score in Galaga. The scores really aren't very hard to reach though so you should unlock them within the first couple hours of play. I really wish that Namco would have done something to make this release special but they didn't. But that's okay, i'm over it :)

In closing *ahem*galaga88*ahem* I would like to say *galaga88* that this game is *galaga88* definitely worth *galaga88* the price *cough*galaga88*cough*

I sometimes wonder why when it often comes to video games, many of the younger generation, doesn't simply appreciate the moments when the classics seem to matter. Maybe they haven't witnessed those powers back in the 80's the arcades used to maintain. Nevertheless, Namco was one of the very few coompany that have still been a presence into the video market. While there have been classics like Donkey Kong, Centipede, and the legendary eater Pac Man, those classics keep coming back all over again. A few years ago, Namco made a compilation that was absolutely breathless, and now it has been restored.

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Arcade collection for the Playstation 2, is a compilation of over a dozen of the most enjoyable classic video arcade games you could ever imagine. The collection maintains it worth in quarters. It includes some of the best from the past including Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Dig Dug, the classic aerial shooter Xevious, and the fast and sometimes furious Pole Position II. The menu also hits the mark quite graciously, by bringing some great classic pop songs of the 80's into the mix including She Drives Me Crazy by the Fine Young Cannibals, and the one-hit wonder Dexy's Midnight Runners classic Come On Eileen. The games remain just as infectious and exciting as they were back then, and have been restored and remastered quite beautifully. Although you don't get the specialized arrangement versions of Pac Man and Did Dug like you did from the previous edition, it doesn't take away any of the fun at all.

This nostalgia in a box, the Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection for teh Playstation 2, is a must have for older and younger gamers alike, who just care about the classics, without the expense of gobbling away money to the machines. I really do recommend this classic gameplay for anybody old or young alike.

Graphics: B

Sound: B+

Control: B 1/2-

Fun & Enjoyment: B

Overall: B 1/2+

Namco may be 50 years old, but the games in this collection aren't even half that.

Not that it matters. Pac-Man and Ms.Pac-Man are the two definitive video games of the 80's.

Galaga: the best of the space-invaders type games.
Pole Position I and II: the first modern racing games.
Dig Dug: the only digging tunnels and pumping enemies up game
Xevious: futuristic top-down scrolling shooter
Plus Rolling Thunder, Rally X, Bosconian, Dragon Spirit, Sky Kid, Mappy and Galaxian.

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection is a must-buy, it completes the trilogy of classic arcade compliations, along with Atari Anthology and Midway Arcade Treasures.

Yes, this is yet another re-packaging with slow menus and a lack of new features. All of that is moot, however, as it includes Galaga '88. I still count Galaga as one of my favorite video games of all time. Preferably this collection would jettison some of the garbage games and add other Galaga-based classics like Gaplus.

Considering that the only other way I know of to play Galaga '88 is on Turbografx-16, the $20 for this collection is worthwhile.

The games included in this set are great, but the process of navigating the menus and saving your data is VERY annoying. TOO MANY LOADING SCREENS! And besides that, the loading screens take WAY too long for a PS2 title that is this simple (it's not exactly God of War, programming-wise). You sit through a LONG loading screen while the main menu comes up. Then you select your game. Another LONG loading screen. You decide you want to switch games, so you exit the one you are playing. Another LONG loading screen. Plus, let's say you've gotten really good at one of the games, to the point where you're really competitive about your high scores. You turn on the game, you screw up and die on the first screen. "D'oh!" you think to yourself, "I gotta start this one over!" But you can't. You CAN'T reset the game, there's no such option. You have to play through all your lives until you get game over, and THEN re-start. Why? Because the only other option is to select "EXIT GAME," sit through the #$%!%$$!ing loading screen again while you're taken back to the main menu, then RE-SELECT the game, SIT THROUGH THE @#$#$ING LOADING SCREEN AGAIN, and then start over.

Also, you would think a game like this would autosave your high scores, such as other titles from the "anthology genre," like Capcom Classics, Midway Arcade Treasures, or Atari Anthology. But not on this one!!! If you set a new top 10 score or high score, you have to exit the game, sit through the loading screen, and then go into the options screen, and save the scores for that INDIVIDUAL game. That's right, EACH game has its own save requirement, so if you play the game for 2 hours and set high scores on Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig-Dug, for example, this means you have to scroll back over to Dig-Dug, select the options screen, click "Save," say "Yes" to confirm you want to save, and then scroll around to Pac-Man, do the EXACT SAME THING for Pac-Man, and then do it all over again a third time for Galaga. There's no way to just have the game save everything you've done on all the games so far, which is a real hassle. And over and above the requirement to save each individual game, WHY in the world would it not just autosave? Why on earth, on a title like this, would anyone get a high score and NOT want it saved????

Basically the games themselves are all wonderful classics,all faithful to their original versions as far as I can tell, but a title like this should be optimized for SMOOTH and SEAMLESS transition from game to game; people want to sit down with a title like this, gather their friends around, and take a stroll through a classic virtual arcade and go from game to game! The setup of this game makes that EXTREMELY difficult to do as you and your friends will VERY quickly get tired of sitting through the same ugly overlong loading screen TWICE every single time you want to get in and out of another game, and likely you'll get frustrated and move on to something else before you even have played all the titles on this disc.

If your a 35 ++ it will bring back some good memories, but also remind you that your game playing skills haven't improved with age! Buy it, it's fun..!

I remember when I was a kid and in my teens playing some of these games at the local arcade or the 7-11 convenience stores. Literally, I'd stand there for hours and play these games til my fingers hurt just to get the highest score and bragging rights against all my friends. Those were some of the best times of my life and, with this classic collection, I can relive those days all over with my friends. The reason why I got the collection in the first place was to have some 2-players games that I could spend playing with friends and family with. I'll admit, some of these games look almost prehistoric to games of this day & time yet they are just as much fun to play now than they were back then.

The collection features Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Pole Position 1&2, Rally-X, Xevious, Bosconian, Rolling Thunder, Mappy, and my two favorites: Dragon Spirit & Sky Kid. Plus there are two extra games(Galaga 88 & Pac-Mania) that you can unlock as well once getting a certain score on three of the aforementioned games. Heck, there's even a cool 80s soundtrack that takes you back to the glory days of arcade gaming.

All in all, the Namco 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection is about the best arcade collection out there. One I highly recommend to all.

Sometimes, that's where the good memories start to roll through because you want to remember the games in the past and keep playing them until this day. It's fun to play Pac-Man and Galaga, Ping Pong, which is fun for 2 Players. I just like playing Pac-Man, Galaga, Pole Position I and II, Ms. Pac-Man. And they are memorable games from the Atari, I wish they had Donkey Kong from Atari, which I that was a lot of fun to play with. The special feature is the Adventure games in Galaga and Pac-Man and those games you won't die. So, this is a game to play and remember.

Ok, if you've never played one of these video games, you were born in the 90's and don't know that they are. :-)

Namco's 50th Anniversary edition of Namco Museum features 14 playable games along with two unlockables for a grand total of 16 arcade originals for your retro enjoyment. All the games, of course, are from the 80's.

The "Museum" part has been reduced down to you selecting different virtual arcade machines one at a time. At the same time, a pop song from the 80's is played as background music. You cannot pick your song unlike from the Activision collection.

The 5 original Namco Museums released in the 90's for the first Playstation featured a 3D Pacman character that could walk around a virtual museum where you were able to examine many obscure Namco related artifacts.

Only Rolling Thunder, Galaga 88, and Sky Kid are original releases; the rest of the games had already been released for the original 5 Namco Museums on the PS1. So this compilation might feel redundant if you already own the previous versions.

In-game options are quick and easy to get into and out. The first Namco Museum for the PS1 did not even have an exit option once the game had begun. You had to press "reset" and wait forever for the system to restart.

So in summary, you get a decent sized collection of Namco's most well known arcade titles that are emulated well, quick to get into, and can provide hours and hours of fun. Conversly, I just wish that Namco included a sampling of their old arcade memorabilia along with some background info on the games. Either way this is a good collection that shouldn't be missed.