Namco Museum 50th Anniversary

Although clearly not targeted towards the hardcore gamer, this is a great way to revisit some old favorites.

It might not have a shiny package, but it's everything we loved about the arcade.

Unlike Midway's Arcade Treasures series there's nothing in the way of background, historical or inside information on the titles.

Even though game is lacking on extra stuff, Namco Museum 50th Anniversary is still Namco's best compilation package ever.

The fact that many of these titles are indeed classics may be a convincing enough reason to pay for this collection, but most gamers would be better off spending their money on one of those newfangled 3D games.

In the end this game delivers what you would expect, a collection of classic titles from the days of yore. For the decent price of the title it's not a bad little collection.

A great compilation of (mostly) classic games, but you have to wonder how many times they can package the same game.

Reasonably meaty. [Nov 2005, p.112]

While the game should have included at least a little bit of museum-quality extras, at $20 it's still a hard deal to pass up.

The large selection of titles is a great value for $19.99 and they are all still plenty of fun to play, however the lack of any sort of bonus material is inexcusable, and when you consider that the majority of these games have been released in compilations from Namco before, the game's content simply doesn't live up to its celebratory billing.

Despite the lackluster presentation, the games hold their own.Shooting for Galaga '88 High Scores is still as fun today as it was back in 1987.

It's far from a disappointing cavalcade of games, as they'll keep you busy for hours, but it almost feels like a speedy effort through development, without actually delving into Namco's history. It's like walking into an arcade for five minutes instead of staying a couple of hours.

But this compilation serves up all their gaming hits and, apart from proving just how far, thankfully, gaming has come in the last 25 years, it also manages to deliver nostalgia by the bucketload.

All of these games are fun to spend some time with, to a lesser or greater degree, but none of them will keep you entertained for very long, making this a nice filler for an hour between the other games you're currently playing.

For an anniversary edition, Namco's latest compilation just rehashes some of the classics, and doesn't bother with anything else.

Namco's back catalog deserves better than this slapped-together cash-in.

The minimal presentation, weak interface and comparatively paltry selection of titles hardly seems worthy of a golden anniversary.

Where's the Namco background? Developer interviews? Designer retrospectives? It's a missed opportunity, and a massive disappointment.

These games should be kept out of the hands of youth so as not to show them how ignorant we were when we were young.

If you were hoping to get some historical insight into a company that has been around 50 years and in the latter half of its existence adapted very successfully to the new video game medium, forget it.

Like one of those crappy parties you go to where there's a stale cake and some withered balloons on the table. No one did any work and no one really cared.