The major complaint about Namco's
Museum series of retro compilations is that they're just
too faithful to their arcade counterparts. People don't want exact arcade translations anymore, they want games remade unrecognizably in 3D! They want Pac-Man randomly inserted into every game!
At least, that seems to be Namco Bandai's thinking. Either that or they weren't sure how else to rerelease
games they're already
selling on the
Virtual Console. The result is
Namco Museum Remix, a set of Namco classics, now with more waggle, depth, and Pac! The remixed games include
Galaga, Pac-Motos, Rally-X, Gator Panic, and
Pac 'n Roll, which is apparently a classic now despite not even being two years old. For that matter,
Gator Panic seems to be based on a
cell phone game which is itself based on the Whack-a-Mole like redemption game, and we have no idea what
Pac-Motos was originally. Interesting what passes for "classics" these days!
In addition to the remixes, the collection includes
Cutie Q,
Dig Dug, Galaxian,
Gaplus,
Mappy,
Pac & Pal, Pac-Mania,
Super Pac-Man, and
Xevious. We poke fun at Namco for selling the same games over and over again, but this is an okay selection of somewhat less common stuff! Sorry to everyone who bought NES
Xevious on the Virtual Console.
Check out our gallery of screens from the remixed games. Some are faithful, like
Rally-X, and others are completely incomprehensible, like the image at the top of this post, which is supposed to be
Galaga.
