Welcome to the Namco Museum!
Hello and welcome to the Namco Museum. I’ll be your tour guide today. My name is Cary and we’ll be looking at the two newest branches of the Museum: the DS and Wii games. Please stay in the group and hold all questions until the end of the tour. Ready? Let’s begin. And we’re walking…we’re walking…
Namco Museum DS
This collection starts off with a cute, yet simple intro that only uses sprites from the old games to introduce each game in the collection, accompanied by the appropriate music. It first starts out with Galaxian ships swooping down to spell the name of the game. Then Dig Dug chases Pac-Man, trying to pump him up before he gets the power pellet. Then when Pac-Man gets big, he chases after Dig Dug while spelling Dig Dug 2. Then Pac-Man comes back, eating a trail of dots and spelling Pac-Man behind him. Ghosts are on the bottom of the screen, and when Pac-Man eats the power pellet, he stops and the Pac-Man letters fall and hit the ghosts. Then Mappy comes out and sees this big yellow ball and starts rolling on top of it, and then Pac-Man starts moving his mouth, which confuses Mappy as they roll off the screen. A Mewoky (Mappy enemy cat) falls off the Mappy title. Then the Xevious ship, called Solvalou, bombs out the Xevious letters to the tune of the Xevious intro. On the bottom the ship bombs a spot and a Special Flag appears (you can bomb secret places in the game to get these). But then, a Galaga ship snags it first and beams up the Solvalou ship like it does the Galaga ship. Then, while Druaga enemies spell up the title, Gil from The Tower of Druaga opens a treasure chest, revealing a power pellet which he then pushes up the the left side of the screen again. Then Pac-Man, followed by a whole cast of Namco arcade sprites, parades out to spell the letters NAMCO MUSEUM DS. Pac-Man eats the power pellet and chomps the blue ghost to form the C in NAMCO, and then Fygar (Dig Dug dragon) on the end breathes fire on Nyamco (Mappy cat gang leader), and the Galaga ship because they neglected to form the letters DS. And that’s the fun intro!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the same people who did Namco Museum DS also did the Konami classic collection on the DS, as they have pretty much the same interface. Play the games on the top screen and fiddle with options on the bottom. You can change the screen size, flip the screen sideways, pick which screen you want to see it on, change the view from sharp or blurry (though it doesn’t make much difference since the DS resolution is so low anyway). You can also change arcade settings and flip dip switches to pick how many lives you get, bonus life points, etc. And just like any good Namco Museum, you can view flyers and art and history and stuff for each game. And you can listen to the music from each game with a lineup of Namco characters on the bottom dancing. The cool thing about the music gallery is that there is a tiny piano keyboard that shows the notes to each song, so if you can look carefully enough, you’ll know what notes to play for the Pac-Man intro or the Mappy theme. And that’s about it. Some games have special DS functions that I’ll go over when I talk about each game: Galaxian
Not much to say about this one. Came out in the Space Invader age. It was probably a big deal that it had colorful graphics, enemies that actually dove down at you, and lots of sound effects. Shark element comes in the form of trying to shoot the red ships, followed by the flagship for maximum points. It’s really the prequel to Galaga.Dig Dug 2
Kind of weird that they chose the little known Dig Dug sequel rather than the original one that everyone knows, but oh well. You still pump up Pookas and Fygars like before, but now you walk around islands in an overhead perspective. You can drill posts in islands to make cracks, and sink parts of an island. If monsters go down with it, you get them, too. Just don’t fall over yourself! If you like the gameplay of Dig Dug 2, you may want to try another DS game called Dig Dug Digging Strike. It combines the gameplay of both Dig Dug and the sequel, and I think it’s a pretty fun arcade action DS title.
Pac-Man
Now, do I really need to talk about Pac-Man? I think we all know what it is. At least I hope we do. And most regular readsrs also know that I’m a huge Pac-Man fanatic, with a full size arcade machine in my garage and I collect all sorts of Pac-Man merchandise from the 80’s. I’ve loved Pac-Man since I was little.
Mappy
Another favorite of mine. It’s basically Pac-Man with gravity. You’re Mappy the police mouse, and you must get back all the treasures stolen by Nyamco and his gang of Mewkies (all cats). Although in the US version, they called Nyamco “Goro” and they do in the DS and Wii versions of Mappy, too. Run around a house and jump on trampolines and don’t get caught by the cats. Lots of neat secrets to get more bonus points. Like collecting matching treasures to double your points, snagging an item when Nyamco is behind it will net you 5000 points, etc. I love Mappy, it’s a great game with catchy music. Too bad they couldn’t have Mappy Arrangement on here. It’s a two player split screen game that would be great on the DS with the dual screens and all.
Xevious
Probably one of the first, if not THE first, vertically scrolling shooter. Looks like you’re flying over a golf course the whole time, though. I was impressed that in the museum history section, they talked about the series of novels in Japan that they wrote to go along with Xevious’ complicated back story (yes, really). On the DS, you can have a map on the bottom screen that shows where all the hidden things you can bomb on the ground are. That’s one of the new things they added, so now you can tell where to bomb to get towers and Special Flags to appear.
Galaga
Here’s another one I don’t think I need to talk about very much. Very popular 80’s shooter that was a huge hit in all the arcades and everyone knows about. Like Ms. Pac-Man, you can still see it in many arcades today. On the DS, you can have them show you the flight patterns of the enemies on the bottom screen in the bonus stages. Not too terribly helpful, but still kinda neat.
The Tower of Druaga
This was put on the collection so they could sell this DS game in Japan. It was popular there, but never released here. A very difficult dungeon maze game with a fantasy theme, and surprisingly complicated for an arcade title. Not very much fun, but I still find many aspects of the Druaga series intriguing. Like how it’s so popular there and all the sequels and references in other games. And the fact that the game is VERY loosely based on the oldest known piece of written literature: The Epic of Gilgemesh. The bottom screen addition to the DS version is REALLY cool. In the arcade, there were treasures that you had to do weird things to get to appear, and some of these treasures you couldn’t complete the game without. Well the DS version’s bottom screen tells you what to do to get these treasures, and what they do when you get them! It makes the game a little bit more playable! After the tour, if any of you has any questtions about Druaga games, I can certainly answer them. I really want to play the arcade Battle of Druaga online game. I get dibs on Valkyrie.
Pac-Man Vs.
All those games are fine, but the real reason to get Namco Museum DS is for Pac-Man Vs. It’s worth the 20 bucks right there. A few years ago, the creator of gaming’s most popular franchises like Mario and Zelda, Shigeru Miyamoto, made a Pac-Man demo game showing off how you could play a game on the GameCube with Game Boy Advance connectivity. Pac-Man is actually one of Shigeru Miyamoto’s favorite games, too. Anyway, Namco released the demo on the GameCube with some other games, but due to the high cost of all the hardware needed, not too many people played it. But the DS eliminates all those problems, as you only need one copy of the game and people with DSeses.
In Pac-Man Vs., one person is Pac-Man and eats dots, ghosts, and power pellets while scoring points. The rest of the players are ghosts and try to get Pac-Man. Pac-Man has an advantage that he can see the whole maze on the bottom screen. If a ghost player catches Pac-Man, he gets to be Pac-Man and score points until he gets caught. Whoever gets to the target score first, wins. It’s really a lot of fun and my brothers really enjoy it a lot, surprisingly (it’s hard to get them to play my old games anymore). The best part of Pac-Man Vs. on the DS, though, is that they took out Mario’s annoying voice as the announcer. The GameCube version had Mario telling players when Pac-Man ate a power pellet and stuff. It was really annoying.
You can pick different mazes to play in, and one of them makes a reference to another Namco game. The last maze, Lib Rab Woods, is a reference to Libble Rabble. It was an arcade game, made by the same guy who created Pac-Man, actually. They play the same music and the maze looks like the field layout in Libble Rabble. Libble Rabble is a really strange game to try and describe, but I can at the end of the tour if anyone wants me to. IF ANYONE FROM NAMCO IS READING MY BLOG, LISTEN TO THIS: Put Libble Rabble on a future Namco Museum or put it on Xbox Live (it would be perfect with the dual analog controls). I really want to play it!
And that’s all there is to Namco Museum DS. Too bad there’s no real museum to walk around in like in the PSOne versions, but at least they put some art and history in this one. It’s a start. Now if you’ll direct your attention over here, we’ll look at the Wii Namco Museum game:
Namco Museum Remix
This one’s on the Wii. It has 9 classic games, and 5 Wii based games based on elements from classic Namco games. You do roll around Pac-Man in a museum-like setting, but there is no exhibits or anything besides the game. We’ll go look at the Wii Remix games first.
Galaga Remix
Aside from shooting Galaga bugs, this one really doesn’t have much to do with Galaga. You aim at the remote to shoot Galaga bugs, and all the while Pac-Man is rolling down a little pipe out in space, and you have to shoot the bugs before they hit Pac-Man too many times. Yeah, all these games put Pac-Man in it somewhere, even if they don’t really need it. It’s pretty fun though, in a simple Point Blank/Time Crisis sort of way. You can do multiplayer, too, which is also fun to see who can shoot the most bugs.
Rally-X Remix
Sure the graphics are 3-D now and Pac-Man’s in the racing car, but it really doesn’t add anything new to the formula. It’s still just Pac-Man with race cars. Sometimes they mix things up by having you pick up the flags in a certain order, or stealing flags from the other racers by smokescreening them first. But other than that, it’s nothing that Rally-X Arrangement didn’t do first and better. You can put your Mii in the car and there is mulitplayer which I haven’t tried yet. You control with the nunchuck but the controls aren’t as responsive as what I’d like them to be.
Pac-Motos
Motos was an old Namco game that’s pretty much like bumper cars in space. Just bump the enemies off the edge and don’t fall off yourself. Hmm…you know, Soul Calibur is like that, too. Anyway, in Pac-Motos, you just control Pac-Man in the same way and some of the power ups from Pac N Roll appear. And the graphics are more cheerful and colorful. But it’s still pretty simple and fun. Again, four player bumping should be quite fun, and there are some pretty creative stages so I like it so far. Not a whole lot to do with Pac-Man, but I do like how the boss characters are just giant blue ghosts! I wonder if this is like the Motos Arrangement that’s on the Japan only Namco Museum vol. 2 on PSP?
Gator Panic Remix
Chances are, if you’ve been to a Chuck E. Cheese or other kiddie arcade, you’ve seen a Gator Panic machine. It’s basically whack a mole with alligators instead. Most of the time, though, the hammer is missing in the arcade, so kids just use their hands to hit the gators (which is why no rinse hand disinfectant is so important at these places). And you’ll know it when you hear it because the alligators would say “Ouch” in a deep voice when you hit them (on the Wii they sound like female voiced gators, though). Gator Panic on the Wii is the most simple and basic of all the remix games on the collection. How many whack a mole clones does the Wii need? And you don’t even have to move the remote around to whack different gators, you move around a cursor with the nunchuck. It’s not a bad game, but you probably will spend the least time with this one.
Pac N Roll Remix
Pac N Roll was originally a DS game that was a mix of Pac-Man dot eating/ghost chasing elements with rolling games like Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball. It was somewhat innovative in that you controlled Pac-Man by rolling him around with the stylus. I was hoping that the Wii version would have some kind of innovative controls like that, like tilting the Wii remote to roll around Pac-Man. But you don’t. You only roll Pac around with the nunchuck stick. And aside from sharper graphics, it’s pretty much the exact same game as the DS. Actually I think they took some stuff OUT of the Wii version, like some of the secret items and story sections. Not the best thing in the world, but still a nice diversion.
Carnival Arcade
There’s another whole room where you can roll around Pac-Man with all 9 of these silly arcade cabinets. Roll him up to one to play. You can tweak settings and lives and each game has neat side art when you play. I’m not sure if the graphics are blurry or not because my TV’s not HD and neither are my eyes.
Pac & Pal
This is a game that I don’t think was ever released in the US. Some Web sites say it almost was under the name Pac-Man and Chomp Chomp (Pac-Man’s dog), but I’ve never heard anything official from Namco so I’m not sure. It’s a lot like Super Pac-Man (bet it even uses the same engine). Roll over cards to unlock gates in the maze to eat the fruits. But aside from the four ghosts, there’s another little green ball with a bow that will take your fruit and drag it around. If she gets to the ghost hideout before you can take it from her, it’s gone forever. I think her name is “Pal” but I don’t think she’s much of a pal. Your power ups are also weird. Instead of power pellets, if you eat a Galaxian, you can shoot out little Galaga beams to stun the ghosts. If you eat a Rally-X car, you shoot out smoke, and eat a trumpet and you can shoot ghosts to make them dance. You still get the bonus points like when you eat the ghosts, though. And that’s Pac & Pal, weird as it is. Kinda cool they put it on here I guess. Maybe on future Museums they can put even weirder stuff on there like Wonder Momo and Libble Rabble. The cabinet for this game in the Wii museum is round and green.
Cutie Q
The cabinet for this game looks like a pinball machine. It’s pretty old. Older than Pac-Man. It’s actually a mix of a Break Out game with pinball elements. It’s actually a sequel to other pinball Break Out hybrids Gee Bee and Bomb Bee. And they were actually made by the same guy who created Pac-Man: Toru Iwatani.
Galaxian
Since Galaxian is also on the DS version, I don’t think I’ll talk about it much here.
Xevious
Again, since this one’s on the DS version, I won’t bother with talking about it much here. When I was little I took my dad’s dot matrix printer paper and made my own Xevious map across all the sheets. I got in trouble for that.
Super Pac-Man
YES! This is my favorite Pac-Man game. I love it because it was so weird and bonkers. Eating super power pellets to get so big that you don’t even fit in the maze, all the crazy music and sound effects, etc. Sure, some people argue that gameplay wise, it’s not as good, but I don’t care. I like it and I’m really good at it, too.
Mappy
Also on the DS collection, so I won’t talk about it much here. I had a tradition in college where I would play a game of Mappy before taking a big exam. One time at an arcade auction, this guy was scatting and jazz singing to the Mappy song while playing it. He was weird. And no it wasn’t me. Meowky is called Goro here, too.
Gaplus
It’s the sequel to Galaga. In fact, in the US some arcade machines say Galaga 3 on them. It probably caused people to think “where’s Galaga 2?” (Galaxian was actually Galaga 1). It’s funny how the remixed games on here don’t have the original games. No Galaga, but they do have Gaplus. In Gaplus, everything is harder and faster, and instead of the enemies sucking you up, you suck them up! And then you can have a whole row of enemies on your side. Handy for the bonus stages. Still a really hard game, though.
Dig Dug
This is the one that everyone knows and loves where you dig in the ground and pump up bad guys. I have this on Xbox Live and an arcade machine of it in my garage by the Pac-Man one. Did you know that Dig Dug is Mr. Driller’s dad?
Pac-Mania
This is the 3-D isometric arcade Pac-Man game where you can jump over the ghosts. The arcade cabinet here is all LEGO blocks like the first level maze in the game. This is a pretty good Pac-Man game, too. I like it a lot and I was glad to see it when it first came out in arcades because it had been a long time since there was a new Pac-Man game.
And that’s pretty much all there is to talk about. That’s the end of the tour. I would say the gift shop is on the left, but I think I bought all the stuff in it for my Namco collection. Hope you enjoyed the tour!
This blog got me to thinking. There’s dream jobs like being a game reviewer. And then there are dream jobs that you KNOW could never happen. I think that kind of job for me would be a Namco Museum curator. It would be cool if Namco would hire me just to spew out Namco knowledge, but I’d rather them use the money to make good games instead. So what would be YOUR impossible dream job? Ice cream taste tester? Chun-Li’s personal servant? Let me know!
November 12th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I wonder if anyone managed to survive ’till the end..
May 27th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I did