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Namco Museum

From a time when Dinosaurs ruled the Earth...

Namco Museum marks something of revival, in Namco’s eyes, of a number of former arcade “hits”, as the game includes Pole Position, Ms. Pacman, Dizduz, Galaga and Galaxian. Quite a ‘bumper’ selection there, but not exactly a classically great one, as the game still remits many ‘true’ classics.

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So what do you do in this selection of ancient games? Well, Pole Position is a retro-arcade style racing game, based on Formula One cars and tracks, Ms. Pacman is the not-quite-as-popular follow-on from the ground-breaking Pacman (the only difference being the familiar yellow circle with a mouth now wears a bow, making it look like a feminist version of the old “Happy Eater” icon), Dizduz is quite a limited and bizarre game which involves inflating enemy with a bicycle pump until they explode whilst tunnelling (not as fun as it sounds) and Galaga is a Space-Invaders style clone, whilst Galaxian is the slight advanced sequel to the latter (well, the space-ship is slightly bigger… oh, and lets be fair, its now two different colours, if you can contain your excitement).

Graphically, the GBA has definitely seen far better days, the vibrant, rich colour of other titles appearing a world away from the rather limited visuals of these remakes. Of course, it never was about eye-candy, with the selection being designed specifically as all the fun of retro arcades in the palm of your hand (e.g. badly designed visuals from the dawn of gaming) and the selection involved alone has the potential to amuse for quite some time, if for no other reason than the inclusion of five entire games.

The gameplay of each varies greatly, all offer some limited appeal; though many, such as Pole Position have simply been made far better since. Naturally, games like Ms. Pacman and the two space-invader clones can be rather entertaining, especially for those that remember the original titles, though one simply can’t shake off the feeling that they’d be a damn sight more impressive if they were found on the games menu of your Nokia, rather than on a game’s system that by definition calls itself “Advance”.

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