Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection feels like the 50th time I’ve seen Namco re-release their classic games. That aside, it has been stuck in my GBA since it arrived, which in turn has been stuck to my hands. Dig Dug, Galaga, Rally X – who hasn't played these games a zillion times? I've never met anyone who hasn't heard of Pac-Man, one of the world's most influential arcade games. These classics, along with Ms. Pac-Man, have had their day and no longer own our pocket change.

But they do own our 10s and 20s.

(I have three or four game compilations with versions of Pac-Man and/or Ms. Pac-Man. Call me crazy, but please note that the guy in the white coat who holds up squiggly pictures – he says I'm sane.)

Since we're dealing with a compilation, let's dissect each portion to determine whether or not this frog was well made.

Pac-Man

As far as retro gaming is concerned I hear Pac-Man's name more often than Sonic and Mario. This side-scrolling, single-screen game is an ongoing battle between the pizza-shaped superhero and a pack of four ghosts who would love nothing more than to have a deep dish with extra cheese. But they'll settle for Pac-Man.

In many ways Pac-Man is a strategy game, as well as a game of survival. Life bars didn't exist back then, only lives. Lives were limited in order to get players to part with more quarters, but the ultimate goal was to get as far and score as high as possible with just one quarter. Competing on this level was the mark of a true master.

Looking back the goal of collecting yellow dots seems trivial, yet it hasn't lost its charm. I can't go back to Pac-Man without wanting to go back again. The more you play it the more you want to play it and that's the way it has always been.

Ms. Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man was the first female character to land a starring role in a game. Arguably faster and certainly more colorful, this version offered gamers an alternative to the original.

 
This is what the side view looks like
 (see “Concept” portion of this review for more).

Galaga

My first space shooter. Clever and highly original, Galaga led the way for future generations of space shooters. The idea of letting your ship be captured just so you could reclaim it and fight with two ships at the same time is brilliant. It was also rather risky for the player, who could lose two ships in one swoop if the enemy ships got the better of them. Enemy ships? More like giant bugs.

Gunfire was limited to two tiny blasts at one time. No more could be fired off until the first blast left the screen. I assume this had to do with the primitive technology available at the time Galaga was conceived. However, we ended up with a more interesting game because of it.

Dig Dug

I really dig this one. Okay, I admit it – that was cheesy (and true). Dig Dug is a game I barely touched in my youth. "Digging? I can do that in Super Mario Bros. 2." I didn't know what I was missing till I became engrossed with the game last year.

Dig Dug, incase you didn't know, is about digging for monsters. You hunt them and they hunt you. Only one weapon can prevent death from knocking at your door: a harpoon that inflates monsters like balloons, expanding their bodies until they blow up. This effect is like a cartoon and is not at all violent, though I have to wonder if it served as inspiration for some of Mortal Kombat 3's outrageous fatalities. 

Dig Dug constant race against the clock. Not an actual clock – an imaginary one that determines how much time you have before the monsters go wild and start attacking. For the most part they're scared and will run away, or continue moving up and down or left and right. Their patience decreases while the number of monsters that appear on-screen increases. Intensity rises; your pulse races; and within a matter of minutes Dig Dug is added to your mental list of all-time favorites.

Rally X

Another strategy game! Rally X was designed to look like a racer, allowing the player to indulge in the joy of spilling oil in their opponent's face. Really you can, and it's your single defense in a world where deranged drivers are trying to crash into you. The top-down view is without a linear path; instead you must obtain yellow flags to pass each level. Flags are scattered – it's reminiscent, though not a clone of Pac-Man.

Levels are repetitive mazes that don't evolve much as the game progresses. The speed at which your opponents strike steadily rises, creating another addictive arcade game that Namco would, unbeknownst to them at the time, continue to entertain us for generations to come.

Gameplay: 8.0
Namco saves their earth-shattering innovations for the Tekken and Soul Calibur series, though I'm sure you'll agree that the stretched view is a great improvement. The priceless gameplay of chomping yellow dots, avoiding multi-colored ghosts and digging to slay monsters - they just don't make games like that anymore. You'd think that Galaga's enemy attack patterns would get old since they never change. Somehow they never have.

Graphics: 5.0
Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary looks like it's stuck in the 80s. I appreciate retro game art, I really do. But in the early 90s Nintendo released Super Mario All-Stars, a Mario compilation that featured 16-bit quality graphics for each game. It would have been awesome if Namco had done the same with these games.

Sound: 7.0
The classic sounds of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Rally X and Dig Dug. No improvements, no changes.

Difficulty: Easy/Hard
Easy to learn, hard to master. Namco's arcade wonders have, for the past two decades, consistently done two things: (1) gained new fans with each new generation of gamers, and (2) they kept their challenging edge in a world where game difficulty is always evolving. It's weird to think that I can play an astonishing, revolutionary game like ICO or Full Spectrum Warrior, find them both challenging, and then be equally challenged (though in other ways) by games that are two decades older.

Concept: 6.9
Handhelds are not usually the best platform for arcade titles. The aspect ratio of arcade machines is nowhere near the aspect ratio of the Game Boy Advance. What to do? Keep the aspect ratio by blocking off a chunk of the GBA's screen with text. Or you can do what Namco finally did with Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary and stretch the game till it fills out the GBA's wider screen. They've also included a sideways mode so that you can know what it feels like to hold your Game Boy Advance in an awkward position, giving passersby reason to say, "Dude, you're holding it the wrong way."

Overall: 7.0
Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary isn't going to sell a ton of copies to gamers like myself who already own each of its featured games. But consider the facts: these games are short and sweet. They're great time-killers. Everyone's played them, taking the question mark out of Christmas shopping – a stocking stuffer for all, and to all who receive it, a good night. Furthermore, Namco went the extra mile (maybe half a kilometer in this case) and re-tooled the games to match the ratio of the GBA's screen. It looks a little stretched, but it was either that or a smaller picture with black bars. No question, I'll take the stretched version.