10 reasons to take your money elsewhere

1. This game costs 45€ (30£/50$) !!! In my opinion, that’s a lot of money for some games you could possibly find on the internet for free. Oops, did I say that out loud? Yeah, I’d feel ashamed of myself too if I shelled out that much money on stuff I don’t need.

2. The loading takes forever. Namco Museum needs to load about half a minute before each game, and you can add fifteen seconds to that after each level. I don't know about you guys, but I think that's a LOT for some old, butt-ugly 2D-games.

3. Most of the games look very much alike. Pac-Man, Dig Dug I & II, Rally-X & New Rally-X and Tower of Druaga all boil down to grabbing stuff before monsters grab you. Outdated concept? Indeed. Boring? Even more so.

4. Galaga, Galaxian, Bosconian, Xevious and Grobda put you into a plane/tank and let you shoot everything that moves from a top-down perspective. In other words, if you've played one, you've played them all. Seems like Namco wasn't too fond of innovative ideas back then either... Ow, and did I mention Mappy is a shameless Donkey Kong rip-off?

5. Speaking of which, King of Balloons is just about the most worthless and dubious clone of the legendary Missile Command I've ever seen. Ooh, the horror...

6. The only retro games that can be enjoyed for more than five minutes are Rolling Thunder, which is a side-scrolling shooting game, and Dragon Buster, which can be described as a Zelda look-alike, though not nearly one tenth as good as the latter. Don't get your hopes up though. After 15 minutes or so you'll exit those games too.

7. The classic games (not the 4 remakes) are recorded in their original format. This means about half of the PSP screen is left unused. You can choose to force 16:9 aspect ratio, but then the images look stretched and very jaggy. Yup, Namco really put a lot of effort in this port...

8. Even the four remakes (Rally-X Arranged, Pac-Man Arranged, Dig Dug Arranged and Galaga Arranged) that feature improved, semi-3D graphics still look awful. They also feature a wireless mode, but I just can't see the point with all those great multiplayer titles out there (Ridge Racer, Twisted Metal Head-On,...).

9. The sound and music of the games in Namco Museum: Battle Collection are so blatantly awful, it's best to turn them off entirely. Saves you some battery life while you're at it.

10. And, before I forget, the classic games don't offer a save function (and if they do, I haven't found it yet). The remakes do, however. So I suppose you're stuck to those four if you just want to pick up your PSP and play something for five minutes...


10… –uh- SOME reasons to buy this game.

1. Well, I guess it’s good enough for those nostalgic, conservative right-wingers among you to get a feel of the “good old days” (/sarcasm).

2. Gamers that have money to burn and really want EVERY single PSP game on the market, will have to buy this one, I guess. If this is the case, please send me a mail (zwan@crew.fragland.net), I can think of plenty of other reasons to get rid of your excess euros/pounds/dollars…

3. I really, really tried very hard to come up with a third reason, but I failed. I’m sorry.