Namco Museum 50th Anniversary review

I began to chuckle when the installation of this little virtual arcade asked me to enter a 20 symbol security code thingy. I mean, come on! Who in their right mind would pirate this pile of old nonsense?!

The ‘laughter’ continued when, while waiting for the thing to install, I read the back of the box.

“Relive your arcade years and rock out to a cool 80’s soundtrack that takes you back to the glory days of arcade gaming and this time… leave your coins at home.”

A Classy List?

Well, excepting of course the coins you flushed down the drain for the pleasure of playing the games on this misguided compilation.

The games are Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Rally-X, Pole Position, Pole Position 2, Xevious, Dragon Spirit, Bosconian, Rolling Thunder, Mappy, Sky Kid and two tiles you unlock by getting high scores elsewhere – Galaga 88 and Pac-Mania. So, 16 games and a soundtrack of 80’s music by original artists that you only get to hear whilst you’re trying to decide which of the games in the arcade to try next.

Oldster

I am old enough to remember many of these titles in my arcade down by the beach at Portobello, but that was a long time ago. Not 50 years ago, I hasten to add, so I’m assuming the anniversary is the founding of the company.

If you are the kind of masochistic gamer who likes to look back on the so-called glory days then, chances are, you will already have downloaded semi-decent versions of these titles. The music in the arcade is either already in your CD collection or will make no impact on your enjoyment of the compilation at all. This leaves you wondering what the point of the whole exercise is.

Fond Memories

NAMCO recently unleashed the dreadful Pac-Man World 3 upon us from their stable of old nags, and I reviewed that for Boom Town too. Can NAMCO please stop abusing these games and their characters (and us) and get on with releasing new and better things for us to play. The titles in this compilation are good for about five minutes of play before your attention starts to wander and you realise you’ve wasted your time and money.

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary is a bit like a film that, when it appears in the TV listings, makes you smile fondly. Then, having forgotten it’s on, you stumble across it when you flick away from Bargain Hunt in the afternoon. You spend a little while watching it before your smile vanishes and you realise that, actually, it’s not really very good and you flick back to Bargain Hunt.

So, in conclusion - Namco Museum 50th Anniversary; not as good as Bargain Hunt (even the repeats).