Namco Museum DS
SCORE: 83
One of the most under rated video games of all time is Pac-Man Vs. In that game three players play as the ghosts while the fourth player gets to be Pac-Man. Countless hours of fun was had by myself and college friends on the Nintendo Gamecube version of Pac-Man Vs. When our always grammatically correct editor in chief let me know there was a Nintendo DS version of Pac-Man Vs. - well I just had to play it. Namco Bandai did not stop there as they also included seven classic video games from a bye gone era. The games include Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug II, Xevious, The Tower of Druaga, Mappy, and Galaxian. A pretty heavy shooter compilation. The top screen of the Nintendo DS exhibits the arcade classics emulated quite well, and the bottom screen shows off all the different options available to the player.
The majority of these games are from a long time ago, but this same galaxy. They are wonderful representations of twenty year old graphics. There are some nice colors used, and the intro to the game is really cool to watch. Pac-Man Vs. has the best graphics of the entire bunch of these bananas. The Tower of Druaga has some hacking as the player swings a sword, and the shooter games have the player shooting alien ships (editor: even dropping bombs). I know I have been desensitized by too many violent video games, so the violence in these games do not seem that bad. Seek out God’s opinion on it, and no mere mortal.
The old beeps, and bops have come a long way in the thirty something years of video games. Namco Museum DS stays faithful to the old sounds from the arcade machines. If you are old enough to remember these then you are dating yourself. I have seen some of these games in classic arcades around town, and this compilation is certainly much more portable. There are minor explosion sounds of the different enemy ships as the player shoots them (editor: or as the player gets shot). That would be the only thing I can think of that could be offensive to any of our wonderful readers at Family Friendly Gaming.
If you can get three friends who each have a Nintendo DS then a lot of Pac-Man Vs. can be played (note: only one game cartridge is needed). There is also a lot of replay value in the arcade games found within this compilation. Some of these games are better than others though. If you are into these kind of games then this will be worth the price of admission.
Namco Bandai made sure that there is a lot of different options available to the player. How the screen is displayed is one perfect example. Each of these games control true to the arcade feel from the historical records. For those of us not raised on these games this can lead to a little frustration as the controls can feel a little sluggish at times. At the prompting of my boss, I went to a local arcade and verified these games performed the same way in those big clunky machines.
I am really glad that Namco Bandai
released Namco Museum DS. Pac-Man Vs. works perfectly on the Nintendo
DS, and is an excellent way to play that game. The only issue I can see
is the shooting in some of those arcade shooters. If that bothers you
then pray about whether a purchase is right for your family. If you are
a young adult who is interested in video game history, then check this
one out.
- Luke
Graphics: 80%
Sound: 74%
Replay/Extras: 92%
Gameplay: 88%
Family Friendly Factor: 82%
System: Nintendo DS
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Rating: 'E' for Everyone
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