Namco Museum 50th Anniversary Review

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary is a collection of 16 classic games from Namco including such favorites as Galaga, Galaxian, and Pac-Man. Fans of these classic games will definitely dig it, but for a title that is supposed to be celebrating fifty years of Namco it is surprisingly light on content. For a mere $20, however, it is still worth checking out.

Features

The full game list in Namco Museum 50th Anniversary contains 16 games that read like a who’s who of classic videogaming. You’ll get Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Rally-X, Pole Position, Pole Position II, Xevious, Dragon Spirit, Bosconian, Rolling Thunder, Mappy, Sky Kid, and Pac-Mania and Galaga ’88 are both unlockable.

Unfortunately, that is all you get. There is no bonus content whatsoever. This is particularly disappointing because this would be a perfect place for Namco to really strut their stuff and show off what they have accomplished over the last 50 years. But we get bupkis instead. Another issue is that a majority of these games have appeared on Namco Museum games in the past including one that is a Platinum Hits Xbox title. We have seen most of this stuff before and since there isn’t any bonus content there really isn’t any reason to buy this one over the older Museum titles.

Gameplay

As far as the games themselves go, they are all pretty much perfect. Not every title is a winner, but you can’t beat Galaga, Galaxian, Pole Postion, and Pac-Man, so overall the lineup is pretty good. All of the games play fine with a Controller S, but you’ll get an even better experience with an arcade stick. Pole Position I and II used a wheel in the arcade, but they work just fine with a controller so don’t bother dragging out your wheels. All in all, these games are just as fun as you remember and play as solidly as ever. It isn’t a very smooth experience, however, and there are some lengthy load times particularly when you quit a game and want to switch to something else.

Graphics and Sound

As far as presentation goes, you can’t expect too much from Namco Museum 50th Anniversary. These games are all about twenty years old, after all. Also, because many of the games are vertically oriented there are black bars on either side of the screen to make them look right. In previous Museum titles the artwork from the arcade cabinet filled these gaps on the side, but in 50th Anniversary they are just black bars which is a letdown. The menu is pretty cool as it is made up of 3D arcade machines that represent each game.

As far as sound goes, the simple sound effects and music that is so memorable in many of these games is back in perfect form. There is a small selection of licensed ‘80’s music that plays on the menu, but there are only a handful of tracks and you can’t listen to them during actual gameplay so I have to kind of wonder what the point was.

Bottom Line

Even though we have seen many of these games before and there isn’t any extra content to speak of, for $20 this is hard to pass up. It would have been nice to actually see some history and actually celebrate the 50th anniversary of Namco, but it just isn’t here. If you already have a Museum title, you can probably skip 50th Anniversary because you have seen most of this stuff already. If you aren’t already rocking a Namco Museum title in your collection, 50th Anniversary is just as good of a place as any to start.