February 23, 2005

New Game: Namco Museum (JP)

Title: Namco Museum
Platform: Sony PSP (JP)
Publisher: Namco

Where: Dreamland
When: February 23
How Much: 3,800 yen (3,990 yen w/tax)

I picked up Namco Museum today during my lunch break; I wrote up some brief impressions over on GAF based on about 30 minutes of play, so I figured I'd paste them in here as well. Work is too busy right now for me to be writing up anything substantial, so I apologize in advance if the following seems messy or disjointed. Anyway, here goes:

Unfortunately I'm WAY too busy with work today to provide detailed impressions, but here's a couple of quick notes to get you drooling:

- Load times seem pretty good so far (not too long)

- Arranged games have all-new music

- Arranged games have "Start" and "Continue" options; you can pick up where you left off if you want

- All games support d-pad and analog stick

- Pac-Man Arrangement: Basically a 3D version of Pac-Man, but with items (jump feather, dash boots, etc), stage gimmicks (warp tiles, tunnels, elevators, etc.) and bosses. There's a set stage progression, so presumably you can "beat" the game this time. Worlds are selected from a map screen. Seems fun so far.

- Dig-Dug Arrangement: Seems like Pac-Man in that there's a set number of worlds, new items, stage gimmicks and bosses. Love the visuals... they look kinda similar to the arcade arranged version, but I'm pretty sure this is not the same game.

- Galaga Arrangement: Not sure if this has an end or not, but it too has stage progression and bosses, so I'd imagine there might be a way to finish it as well. I played a few stages and beat the first boss; it seems very cool so far. I got taken in by a tractor beam once but rather than get a double ship, I just got a stronger laser. Not sure what happens the second time around as I didn't try.

- New Rally-X Arrangement: The world view is top-down 3D, it looks pretty cool. Some of the goals are different now. For example, in addition to your standard "get all the flags," now there's also "get all the flags and then proceed to the goal," and "get all the flags, including the ones being carried by enemy cars" and such. You can boost now too, in addition to dropping smoke.

The original old-school versions let you adjust the screen in a variety of ways; all of the games save for Rally-X and New Rally-X support tate (i.e. vertical) mode, and you can also choose to play each game in its original resolution (doesn't fill the entire PSP screen), border-to-border (takes advantage of the PSP screen by filling it vertically), full (stretches to fill the entire thing on all sides; very ugly), arranged (like the original, but sticks the scores on the side to make the dimensions more accurate), and so on. Some games have other options, too; Galaga and Galaxian have an option to shoot with the analog stick, for example.

All in all, it seems like a VERY nice package so far, and possibly the best edition of Namco Museum yet.

And now... back to work for me!

PS - I got Need for Speed today too, but that belongs to EGM, so I can't really talk about it here. I will say one thing, though: EA needs to do something about their music guy. That opening song practically made my ears bleed. :p

Posted by john tv at February 23, 2005 03:49 PM