If there’s one group of gamers you don’t want to earn the ire of, it’s the arcade purists. If the slightest thing isn’t faithfully emulated, then here comes the hate mail. From the very first Namco Museum on the PSOne, the series has seen a lot of improvements and interesting choices from a game library housing arguably over half the arcade classics of the era when arcades actually made money. Unfortunately, the Xbox version of Namco Museum takes many steps back from the progress the PSOne games were making, and will give those arcade nuts enough writing to cramp their hands.

The problems of Namco Museum are vast, so before we hit those, we might as well discuss the good stuff. Dig Dug. A personal favorite of mine, I can remember spending a long time with the Apple II version of the game, in addition to playing it first every time Namco Museum comes around. There’s just something that’s so intuitively easy about the game (simply shoot a monster in the stomach and pump him full of air until he explodes) that seems almost impossible to screw up. We’ll see in Dig Dug Arrangement that Namco indeed found a way. For now though, the emulation of Dig Dug was pretty much picture perfect, and it brought back a wave of nostalgia. While I would only fancy playing Pole Position a few times and than say, “Oh that’s nice… but I’ll never play it again”, there’s never been a game like Dig Dug that’s managed to top it. Other folks look at Pac Man as being the greatest arcade game ever, since it’s so simple to reproduce and yet addictive, but my personal favorite will always be Dig Dug.

The PSOne had many volumes of Museum so they covered a healthy variety of games, but since this is the ‘first’ Namco Museum for Xbox (and probably the last), they retread back to the first volume of the PSOne series and deliver pretty much the arcade classics staples. You got your perfectly emulated Pac Man, you’re slightly imperfect Ms Pac Man (the speed has been slowed down considerably from what I remember it to be, since it plays now at the same speed as Pac Man when it was supposed to be like Pac Man Turbo), perfect Galaga, perfect Galaxian and perfect Pole Position. All of these games should need no explanation, with the exception of Galaxian which is like Space Invaders without rocks to hide behind. Pac Man can be played on every console ever made, even TI-86 calculators (although not Namco made, Pac Man clones are very easy to clone), so that should be familiar to everyone. The fact that each of these games, with the mild exception of Dig Dug can be found on boatloads of systems is just the first of Namco Museum’s many problems.

I remember that previous Namco Museum titles actually had a museum interface. While it was a sloppy, ugly 3D interface it at least lived up to the title of the game, delivering game histories and biographies for each title. Namco Museum for Xbox seems more concerned with simply presenting the games, since the museum interface was scrapped for a simple menu, and there’s no more history of the games you’re playing or historical facts that would’ve made the package more interesting. This is only a more minor gripe considering the major offensive move that Namco pulls off: the Arrangements.

The Arrangements come from Namco’s brilliant idea that people will love ‘remakes’ of their favorite arcade classics. Therefore Dig Dug, Pac Man and Galaga get Arrangements, while Pole Position gets its sequel, Pole Position II. The remake of these games range from extremely bad to just slightly worse than the real thing, with the most offensive being my prized Dig Dug. The idea was to put slightly better graphics on the game (not that much better, but a leap from NES to SNES sort of thing) and add new gameplay elements that were left out of the arcade classic for a reason. Therefore you get dash plates in Pac Man and gigantic boulders and special power-ups in Dig Dug, things that ruin the feel of the game. What’s even worse is the ridiculously challenging AI has been made ridiculously stupid… in Dig Dug Arrangement, I didn’t have a Game Over for 7 stages, where I normally had one every two or so in the arcade version. It’s because the enemies don’t make a big deal out of chasing you, they seem to only follow pre-set AI paths and are only slightly reactionary to your own movements. This is even more true in Pac Man Arrangement, where you’ll find yourself dodging what in the original game would’ve been a suicide scenario. The biggest thing that irritates me is that because the Arrangements are no fun to play, they’re a waste of space. Namco threw in Pacmania and Pac Attack among others, but those aren’t really classic arcade titles. I would’ve liked to see Dig Dug’s sequel along with more of the certified Namco classics that appeared on later volumes of their PSOne series. Especially given that the Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube are all dealing with either DVD formats or near-DVD formats, the space left unused is overwhelming. That’s why even at a lower MSRP I have to declare Namco Museum both a cash-in and a waste of time. If you want to play Dig Dug, Pac Man, Galaga or the other titles, either get the bargain bin PSOne game that has cool historical info too, or just buy an NES and collect them all there for a price probably less than what the Xbox’s Namco Museum will run you.

Considering that we’re dealing with an archive of classic emulated games, the idea of rating graphics is almost useless. Yes, it’s the most powerful next-gen system out there, but you won’t see any differences here over the PS2 or Gamecube Namco Museum ports. Heck, you’ll see only mild differences over the GBA version. The Arrangements could’ve opted for actual high-tech remakes with full 3D models and more detailed environments. Instead, at the max you get a 3D model of Pac Man instead of a flat model, and the other Arrangements stick to 2D sprites still. This is not a game you’d buy an Xbox (or any other system, save an Atari 2600) to show off.

I have a bit more sympathy for the music, because even though the Arrangements boggle it yet again with pathetic techno tracks, the original arcade music is stuff of legend. I bet anyone can remember Pac Man’s signature ‘waka waka’ sound, or the theme music in the background (just a series of high pitched beeps). The sound is crisp and clear, and it sounds really good when it’s turned up loud. This is one of the parts of Namco Museum that’s guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

The replay value is extremely limited for Namco Museum. It’s nice they included some unlockable games for scoring highpoints on the Pac Man games, but the idea of unlocking Pac Attack and Pac-Mania isn’t something that will keep you up at night plotting. The inclusion of more games would’ve been welcome, because the Arrangements are a certified waste of space, and although the GBA Namco Museum has that irresistible allure of just turning it on for a quick bout of Dig Dug or Pac Man, you’ll probably find Namco Museum for the Xbox takes to long to get up and running to make it useful as a sort of pick up and play game. The lower MSRP is nice for folks who may actually want to own this, but I still recommend either getting the PSOne versions of the Namco Museum series or simply buying a used NES and all the great Namco classics with it. Hopefully if there is a Namco Museum 2 for the next-gen systems, they realize their mistakes.