(thing) by nokobon Wed Dec 27 2000 at 9:31:54
Actually, Namco Museum comes in five different volumes on the PlayStation (its system of origin), each volume sporting one of the five letters that make up the "NAMCO" logo. Aside from offering a selection of the best of Namco's early arcade games, each volume has a fully 3D museum that you can traverse in a first-person view. The museum is chock-full of various Namco memorabilia, all the way down to scans of each individual game board used in the arcade machines. As for the games, they're 100% accurately emulated, with dip switch settings and (occasionally) the border art.

That said, here's the games that each volume includes:

Namco Museum Vol. 1

  • Pac-Man

  • Pole Position

  • Rally-X

  • New Rally-X

  • Galaga

  • Bosconian

  • Toy Pop

    • Namco Museum Vol. 2

  • Xevious

  • Gaplus

  • Super Pac-Man

  • Mappy

  • Grobda

  • Dragon Buster

  • Cutie Q (with hidden Bomb Bee -- both are only available in the Japanese version)

    • Namco Museum Vol. 3

  • Galaxian

  • Ms. Pac-Man

  • Pole Position II

  • Dig Dug

  • Phozon

  • The Tower of Druaga

    • (Why this wasn't Vol. 2 instead is beyond me...it would just seem to flow more logically)

    Namco Museum Vol. 4

  • Assualt (with hidden Assault Plus)

  • Pac-Land

  • Ordyne

  • The Return of Ishtar

  • The Genji and the Heike Clans

    • Namco Museum Vol. 5

  • Baraduke

  • Metro-Cross

  • Pac-Mania

  • Dragon Spirit

  • The Legend of the Valkyrie

    • It still amazes me that Namco had the balls to bring this series out in the U.S. You would've thought they'd butcher it and only add choice games (see ending paragraph below), but no, they managed to pull it off. Yet they never considered the three titles mentioned below. Probably because the bulk of the games in them were never released in the West and were "too Japanese" for right-minded American gamers.

    In Japan, after the five volumes of Museum were out, Namco bundled them all into a box set, complete with a sixth disc called Namco Museum Encore. Encore included Rolling Thunder, King & Balloon, Motos, Dragon Saber, Sky Kid, Rompers and Wonder Momo. Encore was also sold seperately.

    It still wasn't over! Two volumes of a new series called Namco Anthology were released, which not only included the original arcade games but super-duper PlayStation remakes of them! Vol. 1 had Babel, Star Luster, Wrestleball and Conquerer's Continent. Vol. 2 had Pac-Attack, King of Kings, Legend of the Valkyrie and Power Golf II. Powerful stuff!

    Since the N64, Dreamcast and (most recetly) Game Boy Advance versions of Namco Museum were handled by an outside company full of (supposedly) white-bread nobodies, consisted of just six "highlights" of Namco's arcade career, did not have the awesome 3D museum with the cool music, were not so much "emulated" as they were "close to the real thing," and never touched Japan, you can bet that they both sucked. And of course, they do. Shop smart, shop PlayStation (whatever that means). No need to thank me.

    I like it! 1 C!