GasJocket214's Full Review: Namco Museum Vol 3 for PlayStation 1
When I go to movies, sometimes I throw a quarter in an arcade game and play a game of Galaxian, (it’s the game where you are the little gun at the bottom of the screen, and you shoot the enemies that are above you) to see if I can get my name up on the high score list. Sometimes while I am playing these games I think to myself, “wouldn’t it be great if I could play this game forever, and not have to spend all of this money on it?” It would be so great if you could just pay a price and play the game forever.
Well it just so happens that I was looking at some old Playstation games at a store and noticed a game marked down to about $5! Wow, what a great deal considering that most new games cost near $40. I looked at the game more closely now, since the price tag caught my interest. It said that 6 games were on this disc, and when I saw that Pac-Man and Galaxian were on it I immediately bought it. There were other games on the disc, but I didn’t look at those quite yet. I figured that Pac-Man and Galaxian would provide me with plenty of fun. I went home and put the game in my Playstation system.
There are 6 games on the Namco Museum volume 3 disc.
Galaxian- This game is a classic. If you don’t remember what it is: you are a little ship at the bottom of the screen. The only functions you can perform are moving left to right, and firing your gun. When you fire your gun a pellet comes out are goes in a straight line directly upwards, and you are obviously hoping to destroy your enemies with these pellets. The enemies are in a big group and you are outnumbered at least 50 to 1. So you must be have a good technique and be very skilled with the left and right buttons.
Hopefully with that explanation you remember what game I am talking about. The thing that surprised me was that I was not having fun. Sure it was the same game that was at the movie theater, but it was boring. The reason that I came up with is that there is no purpose to your playing. At least at the theater you are trying to get onto the high score list, but at home you are just playing against yourself, which gets extremely boring after a little while. So after playing this game only a couple of times, I moved on to the next game.
Ms. Pac-Man- Ms. Pac-Man is the same this as regular Pac-Man except the yellow creature now has a bow on its head. Anyway, I love Pac-Man. In this game you must make your Pac-Man eat every single dot on the screen, but there are ghosts that stand in your way. You must avoid all of the ghosts and eat all of the dots. Sounds easy enough, but Pac-Man is a very challenging game, because the ghosts usually move around faster then you do.
I am sure that everyone has played Pac-Man at least one time in there life, but once again you will get bored of the game very quickly. At least you feel some satisfaction when you are done playing the game in the arcade, and you put your initials in. What do you do when you are done with the game at your house? It might not seem like a big deal, but how long can you play a game where your initials are the only ones that ever come up on the screen? You feel no sense of competition and it gets boring very quickly.
Dig Dug- Dig Dug proves to be the best game on this disc, or you will at least have the most fun with this one. You have a couple more functions that you can perform with Dig Doug, and there is a lot of skill that is involved. Of course, like every other game on this disc you will get bored of it very fast, but definitely not as fast as the other games. Sure you do want to play a game to have fun and making the high score list isn’t everything, but that is usually what drives us to play these arcade games.
Anyway, your character is a little blue and white guy that you move through layers of dirt, and you try to exterminate enemies. You can incorporate hidden rocks that are found in the dirt into your strategy by dropping them on the enemies. As you make your way through the levels the enemies get bigger in numbers and overall speed. I am glad that Namco put Dig Dug on this disc, but one somewhat fun game is not going to save the disc, and Dig Dug will only provide you with maybe a half an hour of fun and then you will be sick of this one too.
Pole Position 2- Pole Position is a very bad racing game. The graphics are incredibly blotchy and always run together. The controls aren’t really that great either. The only thing you do in this game is race your car against other cars, and always lose. I have (sad to say) played this game dozens of times and have still yet to complete the first level. The only way that you can win this race is if you memorize the course and know exactly how and when to break your car. It is really a waste of time. Pole Position 2 isn’t even worth trying to beat because you will just move onto another course that is a little bit harder. You never are allowed to get new cars, or upgrade your car. The replay value is horrendous, and the game is not very much fun at all.
Phozon- I had never heard of this game before I bought this disc, and I figured I mine as well give it a try. It is sort of like Tetres because you have to match the colors of the odd looking blocks that appear on the screen. The main difference is that your base is at the middle of the screen instead of the bottom, and instead of clearing lines you are making shapes. The computer makes a shape and you must copy it by collecting shapes that fly around you. Phozon gets very boring after only a short while because the entire premise of the game is just silly. We are talking ‘Pa-rappa-the rapper’ silliness here. You try to make the same shapes that the computer does, that sounds like a whole lot of time being wasted to me. Even if you are very bored and have nothing to do this game still is bad. This is by far the worst game on the disc.
The Tower of Druaga- Do we have an adventure game here? Of course not, this is a Namco Museum 6 in 1 game pack, is it even possible to have a good game here? In this game you are a soldier. You try to kill enemies with your sword, which is almost impossible because they kill you before you can do anything, and you block with your shield. You are looking for a big golden key and the door that opens it to move on to the next floor. Whoa, don’t give me all that gameplay at once! I don’t think I can try to get a key and put it in a door. Then when I am done with one floor we move on to another that is just as pointless. This game is right behind Phozon on the list of bad ones.
Overall
Can you tell that I don’t like this game? I should have stuck to just playing the games in the arcade when I get that sudden urge. Another thing to add is that the graphics and sound in every one of these games is awful. The lines and colors run into each other all the time, and the screen gets very blotchy. The sound gets very irritating; you will definitely need a CD for this game. The controls can’t really be evaluated because you pretty much only move left or right in all of these games. Sure you might have fun for an hour with this game, but then it will go on that box of games that you don’t play anymore. I have learned a very important thing from playing this game and that is to never buy a 6 in 1 game. That is pretty much telling you that the company is putting 6 bad games on a disc and hoping that people will think that since there are 6 of them at least 1 has to be good. Most of these games are classics, but lets leave them at the arcade and not try to take them home with us.
Namco Museum NamcoMusem 3 Playstation (PS1) New Sealed Great game! Pop Culture Past! I accept Paypal, please pay promptly. We offer multiple shipping ...More at eBay
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.