Collection essentials #588: Namco Museum (Xbox)

We’ve already seen some arcade compilation discs on this blog lately. Finally I’m showcasing a Namco Museum release. I’m pretty sure Namco is the #1 most prolific maker of compilations like this. It started in 1995 as they released several compilations with five to seven games each on the original PlayStation. Intact, the term “Namco Museum” has been the recurring title for these since those early days, and they’ve spanned a wide variety of consoles in the decades since. 

Namco is of course best-known for their mega arcade hit Pac-Man, as well as the highly-regarded sequel that they surprisingly didn’t make themselves, Ms. Pac-Man. And of course, Namco has a very large repertoire of arcade games with various levels of popularity. So compilations like this make all the sense in the world for them to make. The first two Pac-Man games are so popular that there always will be an audience for them on practically any console.

Now, despite having a ton of arcade games to draw from, Namco doesn’t tend to throw the majority of their games into a single compilation, unfortunately. That way it’s less work, and they probably get more money from spreading them out in multiple releases. And so the Namco Museum that’s the subject of today’s post doesn’t have a huge number of games. But the ones included are some of Namco’s most famous. Games included on this disc are Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaxian, Galaga, Pole Position, Dig Dug, Pole Position II, Pac-Attack (Sega Genesis version) and Pac-Mania, plus a few others that I will talk about later.

I feel I should talk about some of these games individually! I’ve already talked about Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man on this blog before. My parents were into Ms. Pac-Man when I was a kid despite not really being gamers, and they would have a high score competition between each other in a certain arcade during our Maine vacation every August. Even not factoring nostalgia, Ms. Pac-Man is definitely one of my top favorite arcade games of all-time. It’s easy to understand and get into, fun to play, yet difficult to master. It’s a practically-perfect way to spend a quarter. The original Pac-Man is also very good, but it feels a little obsolete in comparison.

Then there’s Galaxian and Galaga. These games clearly drew inspiration from Taito’s big hit Space Invaders. Galaxian is another one that feels rather obsolete compared to what came after, as Galaga is far superior. In Galaga, you face waves which contain various types of insect-like foes. You’re restricted to moving left and right, compared to the later shoot ‘em up standard of being able to move in any direction. There’s one enemy that can capture your ship with a tractor beam, which seems like a bad thing, but if you manage to shoot down an enemy and free a captured ship, you’ll suddenly have a “dual fighter” as the two ships connect and you’ll have double the firepower! There are also bonus stages where you can rack up lots of pointings shooting waves of enemies that fly by in a special pattern. I used to drop quarters into Galaga machines regularly as a kid. It remains a fun little game, though I find the restriction of only left-right movement to be a little frustrating as it can make it hard to avoid getting trapped by enemies and their bullets.

Dig Dug is a cute little game where you play as this guy in a special suit who wields an air pump and can dig underground effortlessly. The game screen shows a 2D view of the play field, which is mostly underground. There are a few air pockets in the earth where enemies are lurking. Dig Dug’s job is to eliminate all of these enemies to clear the stage. He can shoot out his air pump like a spear and inflate enemies like balloons until they blow up. Enemies can also be defeated if Dig Dug finds a solid rock and digs out the ground underneath it so that the rock falls on a poor enemy. The game has an extra bit of charm because the upbeat music only plays when Dig Dug is walking. It’s one of those arcade games that’s easy to grasp and get into, but when you get a few levels in you’ll find things will suddenly start to get challenging. Dig Dug is a notch below Pac-Man and Galaga in terms of fame, but it was still a hit and another classic for Namco’s resume.

The Pole Position games are racing games where you try to qualify by completing laps before time runs out, and honestly I don’t have a lot to say about it because it feels rather dated. It doesn’t have as much appeal in modern times as the other big names in this collection.

Pac-Mania is the game that was born when someone at Namco thought, “What if Pac-Man could jump?” This means that being cornered by ghosts is no longer an automatic death sentence, as Pac-Man has a chance to get out of it with a well-timed jump. Unfortunately, your view of the level is severely limited, so at any given time you can’t see where all the ghosts are unless they’re very close by. I definitely prefer regular Pac-Man, though Pac-Mania isn’t a bad alternative if you want to try something a little different.

Pac-Attack is a game I already talked about on this blog. However, I’m more familiar with the Super Nintendo release, and the one on offer here is the Sega Genesis version. The music is different and the graphics aren’t quite as good, though from what I can tell the two versions are pretty much the same gameplay-wise. You can read more about Pac-Attack in my previous post about it.

Now, I must address the thing that makes this particular Namco Museum an essential for my collection: this disc contains three more games of note. In the mid-’90s, Namco made a couple “Namco Classic Collection” arcade releases which both contained a few of their classics from the previous decade, but also remakes with new graphics and gameplay twists. These versions have “Arrangement” added on to the title, which can be confusing because Namco later released other remakes of these games that also used the word “Arrangement.” This particular Namco Museum contains Pac-man Arrangement, Galaga Arrangement and Dig Dug Arrangement. These remakes are pretty obscure and do not often get ported. I believe this is the only home release that has all three of them together and regularly accessible (and sadly there were more Arrangement titles that this disc does not contain such as Mappy Arrangement). When I found out that this release had these games, I knew I had to have it!

There isn’t really a clear choice for which Namco Museum is the best. All of them have different sets of games, as none have everything. This particular release probably isn’t the #1 best overall, but ‘90s Arrangement versions are an excellent addition that helps it stand out. If you have one of the major consoles from the early 2000s, this Namco Museum is not an expensive one to pick up, and in my opinion is worth checking out (for some reason, though, it only ever got released in America, so fans on other continents would have to import it). As a fan of the old school arcade era, this compilation is definitely an essential in my collection.