Namco Museum 50th Anniversary -- Initial Impression.

I've thrown the dog a bone and picked up Namco Museum 50th Anniversary for the Gamecube. I went in looking for the Xbox version and the store only had two copies of the Gamecube version left and I didn't feel like driving all over the place looking. The Xbox version allows for Xbox Live use in uploading your high scores for global bragging rights. Not like I was expecting to place in the top ten for anything, but a nice little feature missing from the other versions. The game is a collection of sixteen arcade games from Namco's history. The games only go back to 1979, if you were at all wondering about the fifty years part. Namco is celebrating fifty years as a company. Founded in 1955, they started out making the rides for kids in Japanese department stores. You know the kind of thing you see outside a grocery store in the US. Put in a quarter, and have junior bounce up and down in a little plastic police car or on a little plastic horse or something. They didn't get into video games until the late 1970s. What's included for your $19 you might be asking? Well, I'll tell you. You get: Galaxian, Pac-Man, Rally-X, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Bosconian, Pole Position, Xevious, Dig Dug, Pole Position II, Mappy, Sky Kid, Dragon Spirit, Rolling Thunder, Pac-Mania, and Galaga '88. Pac-Mania and Galaga '88 are hidden games. Pac-Mania is unlocked by earning 15,000 points in Pac-Man and 20,000 points in Ms. Pac-Man. Galaga '88 is unlocked by earning 40,000 points in Galaga. Both are exceedingly simple to accomplish. As I was able to unlock them in my initial playing. A couple things come to mind for my initial impressions. This is a bare bones presentation. It's just the games. That's it. No history. No art. No photos. No movies. No developer commentary. No discussion of global cultural impact. None of the stuff they could have done. Just the games and a front end interface. That's rather disappointing for a supposed celebration of fifty years in business. It's very half-assed feeling.  The interface is the sixteen arcade cabinets with their backs to each other in a circle. Galaga '88 and Pac-Mania have out of order signs on them until they are unlocked. During this interface they have 1980s music playing. Five tracks. Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners, Working for the Weekend by Loverboy, She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals, Talking in Your Sleep by The Romantics, and Joystick by Dazz Band. It's almost a nice touch, if it weren't such a limited selection, and you could actually play them over the arcade games.  Every single 1980s arcade I ever went into had the era's pop music blaring over the arcade machines. It was part of the charm of the era. The sights, the sounds, the smells, they all went into it as much as the gameplay. The arcade games and the gameplay are what really matters in this of course, and I'll be covering four games a day for the next few entries.