Namco Museum Battle Collection
It's old-school and it's portable. What more do you need to know?
Published: August 30, 2005
For all the hype the PSP has gotten for being the Next Big Thing in portable gaming, it's nice to know there's still room for a little flashback action from time to time. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the biggest fans of seeing something as flashy and "holy crap, I can't believe this is running in my hands" cool as, say, WipEout Pure because I think that's what gamers are eventually going to demand from all their portable systems. I honestly think it's going to take someone other than Nintendo to make that happen, too, but that's another rant.
Regardless of who actually leads the charge into making games look as good in our hands in a few years as they do on our TVs right now, there needs to be a conscious effort to preserve the quality aspects of past gaming; the 2D fighter, detailed sprites, hand-drawn background art, and, most importantly of all, the games that were the foundation for all the stuff we're playing today.
Nostalgia has a funny way of warping things as your experience changes through life. Going back to play those games that used to be so mind-blowingly amazing often yields surprisingly mediocre results, but there are still games that stand the test of time remarkably well. Yes, this is a segway into talking about NMBC's lineup.
17 classics are included, and they are Pac-Man, Dragon Buster, Rolling Thunder, Galaga, Bosconian, Xevious, DigDug, Ms. Pac-Man, Mappy, New Rally-X, Grobda, The Tower of Druaga, King & Balloon, DigDug II, Rally-X, Galaxian, and Motos. Four games have also gotten an update in Arrangement versions of Pac-Man, DigDug, Galaga and New Rally-X.
The classic games are startlingly good (and bad in some cases), with some stuff like Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man never really losing their charm. Some of the other games works as a one- or two-off dabble in the shallow end of the nostalgia pool, but stuff like Rolling Thunder actually allows for a decent investment for an old arcade game.
The real meat of the game, and the stuff you’ll probably go back to, are the Arrangement modes. These allow for wireless play and, more importantly, expand on the basic gameplay of the old games while updating them with better graphics and more complex levels. None of the Arranged games do this better than Pac-Man, which, not surprisingly, heaps on boss battles, powers and some level tweaks that still manage to do the original game justice.
The other Arranged versions are solid in their own right, and all of them sport some decent graphics that don’t exactly push the PSP to its limit, but there are a few nice tweaks, like the huge boss battles in Galaga and the explosion animations for popped enemies in DigDug.
All the games, not surprisingly run smooth as silk, though not all use the full screen resolution for presentation. It should be noted that the emulated classics give the option to zoom the screen a bit, all the way out to 16:9, or flip it to play old tabletop style.
The audio’s the same, transferring perfectly, and the new effects are nice, but they’re nothing that flexes any PSP muscle. The updated effects more or less thicken up and expand on the stuff from the old games. It’s not quite the simple bleeps and bloops, but it’s pretty much on that level of complexity, which is just right.
With these old-school compilations, you pretty much know what you’re getting, and grading them is always something of a conundrum. Do we review how they’ve held up, how complete the collection is, how the games are presented, how they’re updated? Luckily, Namco makes this rather easy.
At least a good half of these games are good enough for a couple more “just one more game” moments, and the updates are awesome diversions. Given that everyone seems to be of the impression that PSP gamers only play their games in 15 minute bites (I’ve invested hours personally, most of the time), this seems like a must-have for anyone digging a little flashback power. It’s a solid collection and works perfectly on the PSP. Need we say more?
Regardless of who actually leads the charge into making games look as good in our hands in a few years as they do on our TVs right now, there needs to be a conscious effort to preserve the quality aspects of past gaming; the 2D fighter, detailed sprites, hand-drawn background art, and, most importantly of all, the games that were the foundation for all the stuff we're playing today.
Nostalgia has a funny way of warping things as your experience changes through life. Going back to play those games that used to be so mind-blowingly amazing often yields surprisingly mediocre results, but there are still games that stand the test of time remarkably well. Yes, this is a segway into talking about NMBC's lineup.
17 classics are included, and they are Pac-Man, Dragon Buster, Rolling Thunder, Galaga, Bosconian, Xevious, DigDug, Ms. Pac-Man, Mappy, New Rally-X, Grobda, The Tower of Druaga, King & Balloon, DigDug II, Rally-X, Galaxian, and Motos. Four games have also gotten an update in Arrangement versions of Pac-Man, DigDug, Galaga and New Rally-X.
The classic games are startlingly good (and bad in some cases), with some stuff like Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man never really losing their charm. Some of the other games works as a one- or two-off dabble in the shallow end of the nostalgia pool, but stuff like Rolling Thunder actually allows for a decent investment for an old arcade game.
The real meat of the game, and the stuff you’ll probably go back to, are the Arrangement modes. These allow for wireless play and, more importantly, expand on the basic gameplay of the old games while updating them with better graphics and more complex levels. None of the Arranged games do this better than Pac-Man, which, not surprisingly, heaps on boss battles, powers and some level tweaks that still manage to do the original game justice.
The other Arranged versions are solid in their own right, and all of them sport some decent graphics that don’t exactly push the PSP to its limit, but there are a few nice tweaks, like the huge boss battles in Galaga and the explosion animations for popped enemies in DigDug.
All the games, not surprisingly run smooth as silk, though not all use the full screen resolution for presentation. It should be noted that the emulated classics give the option to zoom the screen a bit, all the way out to 16:9, or flip it to play old tabletop style.
The audio’s the same, transferring perfectly, and the new effects are nice, but they’re nothing that flexes any PSP muscle. The updated effects more or less thicken up and expand on the stuff from the old games. It’s not quite the simple bleeps and bloops, but it’s pretty much on that level of complexity, which is just right.
With these old-school compilations, you pretty much know what you’re getting, and grading them is always something of a conundrum. Do we review how they’ve held up, how complete the collection is, how the games are presented, how they’re updated? Luckily, Namco makes this rather easy.
At least a good half of these games are good enough for a couple more “just one more game” moments, and the updates are awesome diversions. Given that everyone seems to be of the impression that PSP gamers only play their games in 15 minute bites (I’ve invested hours personally, most of the time), this seems like a must-have for anyone digging a little flashback power. It’s a solid collection and works perfectly on the PSP. Need we say more?