Museum Games are more of a lesson in classic gaming than an experience.
Namco's Gameboy Advance release of the Namco Museum follow the same path the Williams has taken in their several Greatest Hits releases. This current installment of the Namco museum includes a roster of five games. These games are: Ms. Pac-Man (1980), Galaxian (1979), Galaga (1981), Dig Dug (1982), and Pole Position (1982). These games have been fully restored on a single GBA Cart for your portable convenience. Granted it is nice to have five different games on one cartridge, but I would hardly call this a worth while title.
I can not site any performance issues, nor can I compare the Namco Museum to any of the current games out there. My reasoning behind this is because Namco fully restored Atari classics and packaged them for a modern system. Though I personally am not keen on this idea, I will admit, it is nice to remember the simple times. Each game is configured to interface with the D-Pad and the face buttons, whereas the shoulder buttons have no function in this package, leaving the controls as simple as the games themselves.
To my disappointment, both Galaxian and Galaga are virtually the same game. This means that you are paying for four games, when they advertise five. The slight difference between Galasxian and Galaga is the entrance of the enemies. In Galaga, enemies fly into view and bombard you as they enter. In Galaxian, the enemies are just lined up at the top of the screen, waiting for you to shoot them. All NAMCO needs to do at this point is throw in Space Invaders and advertise six games, but you will still only have four unique games.
The bottom line is, the NAMCO Museum is more of a history lesson than a worth while game. I rated this a 4 because Ms. Pac-Man and Dig Dug are still fun titles, but the other three just don't have a lasting replay value. I would pass this title up, unless it was on the discount rack for less than five dollars.
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