Nice but Not Great Title
There have been way too many Namco museums over the years. There just aren't enough games in the Namco brand that haven't released numerous times before on tons of different platforms. I am hoping to never see a Namco Museum again.
This one, though, does have some nice features. First off, it contains all of the Namco XBLA titles. Some of them have been truly outstanding (Pac-Man C.E and Galaga Legions) and since Pac-Man C.E. didn't break sales records, this might be your first chance to play the best re-imagining of a classic game in history. Galaga Legions is also a great re-imagining, with Galaga being more about strategy then shooting.
The rest, however, is the usual Namco stuff. Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man? Been there, done that. Frequently. Dig Dug? Love the game, but how many times has it been collected? New Rally-X? I hated the original Rally-X. Xevious? Are you serious? Mr. Driller Online with infamously bad online play?
There are also a large collection of Namco games that just weren't that amazing. Super Pac-Man was a joke. Oldies that never came to the US, such as Pac and Pal, are nice distractions, but it is not a really fun game. It never came here for a reason. And the re-visualized games (the arrangements) are just blah. Not ugly, but it doesn't do a heck of a lot for me.
The game has a huge problem, though. If you want to play the XBLA titles, you don't actually play them in the menu. You have to go to the dashboard and play them in your Games Library. Not exactly the most logical way to handle this.
It all looks good, but it's nothing we haven't seen before.
