The Tower of Retro-Babble, Floor 1: Namco

Well, that about wraps up the 3DS and Wii U eShops. If there's anything you still want, get it now, because you're not getting it tomorrow. (Unless you've got h-Shop installed, in which case anything goes. You didn't hear that from me, though! Wink wink!)

So hey, you remember that Namco Museum cab, right? Of course you do, because I never shut up about it. Anyway, the system comes with about twenty five games by default, but that's just a big toe dipped into Namco's extensive arcade library. Since so many important titles were missing, I shored up the numbers a bit and throw on a handful more games that had personal significance to me.

(Get any necessary bathroom and snack breaks out of the way before you dive in... this may take a while.)

Bosconian

Described on early versions of the Killer List of Video Games as "Rally-X, in spaaaace!," Bosconian is a little more than that... more of a hodge-podge of Rally-X, Galaga, and Time Pilot, really. As the pilot of the Star Destroyer, you must hunt down space stations across a vast map (there's the Rally-X part), blow up said stations and their fleets of ships (there's the Galaga part), and occasionally pick off formations of ships for big bonus points (and that would be the Time Pilot part). Occasionally a yellow scout ship appears to survey the damage you've wrought... miss him and you've got a red alert on your hands, with ships swarming your location.

This wasn't one of Namco's most popular pre-crash arcade games, and it artfully dodged official home ports for American home consoles until Namco Museum Volume One for the Playstation. There was an Atari 2600 knock-off, Mission 3000 AD, and a Famicom version that was released much later for plug 'n play systems, but the former was much too much of a burden for the hardware, and the latter is saddled with a four way joystick that works just fine for Pac-Man, but not so much when you're surrounded by ships in the void of space. Stick with the arcade game (and not its craptastic sequel, Blast Off) and you'll be fine.

Gaplus

This was where the wheels started to fall off the Galaxian franchise. The first game was pretty good, a more aggressive and colorful take on Space Invaders with aliens that prefer kamikaze runs to the old "drop down, reverse direction" tactic employed by Taito's space monsters. The second game, Galaga, is a stone cold classic, throwing in swirling formations of insectoid enemies and the option to double your firepower at the risk of one of your ships. (You know you want it, but try to resist the temptation to take that tractor beam ride until the end of the second stage, so you can safely take your escort to the bonus round and really clean house!)

Then you have Gaplus, which took the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to its gameplay, to the annoyance of former fans. Now you're free to move about the bottom third of the screen, and scoop up alien bugs in your own tractor beam, and juggle them in a tedious bonus stage, and be forced to start a parsec from the very beginning because you got sideswiped by an insect that came from the bottom of the screen or some damn diamond that burst in your face. It was hard not to find a Galaga machine in an arcade through the 1980s, but Gaplus was the red-headed stepchild of the series, consigned to the occasional dusty video store. It's not a bad game, but it's just a little too chaotic and cheap for its own good, especially when compared to its brilliant predecessor. 

By the way, there was recently (very recently) a Famicom port of Gaplus, included in Namco Museum Archives for modern systems. M2 made the conversion, and it's up to that company's usual high standards. It's actually a little more fun than the arcade game, likely due in part to its lessened difficulty.

Galaga '88

On the next Star Trek:
Deep Space Nine...
(image from Wow ROMS)

The Galaga series never fully recovered from Gaplus, but Galaga '88 is a strong step in the right direction toward regaining its former glory. It also puts a little too much on your plate, but at least the presentation on that plate rivals that of an upscale restaurant, with chubby bugs that burst into fireworks, sparkling quartz meteors, and lush blue quasars hanging in the distance. It's clear Namco wanted to bring the Galaga series up to the standards of more visually intense late 1980s arcade games, and brother did they deliver!

Galaga '88 still isn't as immediately accessible as Galaga, but the gameplay hooks work better than they had in Gaplus. There are scrolling segments now, and bosses! Of course there are bosses, it was 1988! It's not very original, but at least it fits in the context of a top-down shooter like this.

Galaxian

This is actually included in the Namco Museum cabinet by default, but My Arcade somehow screwed up the sound, so it gets included in the extra folder too. And what an extra it is! Galaxian (as mentioned previously) is basically Space Invaders with teeth. Enemies don't just sit around waiting for you to shoot them; they meet your ship head on, raining needle-like missiles on your head. Sometimes the red "escort" ships will bring along a flagship, increasing their firepower but also increasing the chance of a hefty point bonus. Do you have the skills and the stain-proof underwear to pick off all three foes before they crash into your ship?

Galaxian is everything Space Invaders is, but better. It's not just faster and more intense, but it's in color, a rare feature for an arcade game in the disco-dancin' year of 1979. Too bad its destiny was to be overshadowed by its sequel, which further improved the formula and is largely regarded as the peak of the series. You just can't top perfection... as Namco learned to its frustration when it released Gaplus and Galaga '88 years later.

Jr. Pac-Man

The whole damn, unnecessary maze from Jr. Pac-Man.
Look at this thing! You can't, because two thirds of it
are concealed at any given moment. This isn't a
widescreen game like Darius... it plays on a tate
monitor. Biggest aspect ratio mismatch since Joust 2.
(image from Strategy Wiki)

Designed by General Computer Corporation, Jr. Pac-Man takes the Pac-Man series to new heights... of tedium and frustration! Each stage is actually three standard Pac-Man sized mazes stitched together, which means that you've got a whole lot of munching to do... and a whole lot of monsters craftily hiding off-screen. Also, the roving fruit prizes from Ms. Pac-Man have become a threat onto themselves, plumping up dots to slow you down and blowing up your energizers. If you hear an explosion in the distance, it's not a Michael Bay movie... it's one of your power pills biting it before you could.

It's not a great entry in the series, is the gist. Better than stupidly unfair, miserably ugly Baby Pac-Man, and less annoying than Pac-Man Plus, which will be discussed in gory detail later, but not on par with Pac-Man or the Misses or even Super Pac-Man. At least Super Pac-Man had brevity on its side, with players ripping through stages in a couple of minutes... Jr. Pac-Man just goes on and on and on until you beg for it to stop. It's no surprise that it didn't get the market penetration of other Pac-Man games... but it is slightly bewildering that the more restrained Atari 2600 port is also more fun to play. 

Libble Rabble

Midway and Atari were eager to get their hands on the US distribution rights to nearly every arcade game Namco developed... except this one. The combination of expensive 16-bit hardware and abstract Japanese gameplay meant that Libble Rabble would be a no-show in America for decades. Even Namco itself wouldn't take a chance on Libble Rabble when it was ported to the Super Famicom ten years after its initial release. A localization for a game with only three screens of Japanese dialog would have been a cinch, but nope, even Pac-In-Time seemed like a better choice for an American release than poor, neglected Libble Rabble.

Adventures with the Fill Tool.

There's no question that a game like Libble Rabble would have been a hard sell to an American audience, with its oddball gameplay and its wimpy nature theme. Who wants to be tying strings around plants and colorful druids and furballs who look like the retired Honeycomb mascot? You should, because it's fun and unique and it runs like an ice cream dream on My Arcade's low-octane Namco Museum cabinet, which typically starts to struggle when it hits the 16-bit barrier. You've never played anything like Libble Rabble, and you'll never play anything like it again, which is why you should be playing Libble Rabble right now.

Ms. Pac-Man

Hey, it's Ms. Pac-Man. You know it, you love it, but Namco doesn't love it, because someone else owns the rights. That means you'll have to install Ms. Pac-Man on this cabinet yourself, which you will eagerly do because Ms. Pac-Man is awesome and there's no justifiable reason other than petty corporate squabbling that you shouldn't have it on a cabinet with so much Pac-Man included by default. Sure, Pac-Man is okay on its own, but Ms. Pac-Man is better, in the same way Galaga was better than Galaxian. There's more content, more color, and more style, to the point where the sequel not just surpasses the original, but obsoletes it.

I suspect that whenever someone hacks a Namco Museum cabinet, this is one of the first games that gets added. I mean, you have a tiny arcade cabinet, by Namco, but without Ms. Pac-Man?! Heresy!

New Rally-X

I was never as fond of Rally-X as Pac-Man, but it's the more impressive game visually, and brings its own magic touch to the maze formula. The game's playfield is huge, like it was in Jr. Pac-Man, but because there are only ten onscreen targets to collect and a handy radar that keep tabs on the other racers, it's a lot less obnoxious to play. That was also true of the Commodore VIC-20 version, renamed Radar Rat Race and disguised with a playful cat and mouse theme that brings to mind old Tom and Jerry cartoons. 

No version of Rally-X was included in the cab by default, so I took the liberty of adding New Rally-X. It's largely the same game as the original, but adds a new Lucky flag that tops off your tank and is probably better reserved for when you've collected all the other flags and your fuel bar is low. It's a subtle distinction, but it does help prevent that feeling of panic you get when your car slows to a crawl from a lack of petrol and the other racers close in for the kill...

Pac-Land

Oh yes, Pac-Land. I've played Pac-Land in arcades. I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed the experience, at least not as much as the more robust Super Mario Bros., but scrolling playfields were a brave new world for video games in 1984, and it did have the bonus of being partially based on the Pac-Man cartoon that aired two years earlier. Having a video game look enough like a cartoon to be recognizable as its spin-off was in itself a pretty exciting advance for video games.

Ridiculous! Re-friggin'-diculous!
(image from Strategy Wiki)

Unfortunately, Pac-Land doesn't play as good as it looks, unlike Super Mario Bros., which was the total package. There's less for Pac-Man to do, the secrets that were fun to discover in Super Mario Bros. are gallingly cryptic in Pac-Land, and later stages devolve into a button mashing contest to keep Pac-Man in the air after he hits a springboard. Why did this suddenly become Track 'n Field? Why didn't you warn me that it was going to become Track 'n Field beforehand? How am I supposed to make it to the end of this ocean on the propulsion from one springboard? Maybe Pac-Man should forget about the gymnastics and take some swimming lessons instead.

Pac-Man Plus

This is also known as Exciting New Pac-Man Plus, but not to anyone who's actually played it. Annoying Recycled Pac-Man Plus is probably closer to the mark. It's one of those unwelcome pseudo-sequels that pop out of nowhere to further the popularity of a hit arcade game, while draining quarters from players who learned all of the original game's tricks. Atari made this work with Asteroids Deluxe, which adds new more aggressive enemies that discourage the player from camping in the center of the screen. Okay, fine. I feel called out with these changes, but I'll use thrust if I really, really have to do it. At least the ship isn't so damn floaty this time.

For some reason, the monsters
in Excretable New Cack-Man
Putz turn into peaches after
you eat a power pellet. Don't
have the figgiest idea why.
(image from HG101) 

Unfortunately, there's no purpose to the new play mechanics in Pac-Man Plus, aside from annoying and defrauding the player. It's like Pac-Man Pranked! "Oh look, there's the energizer! Quickly go get it to turn all the monsters blue, except OOPS! It only turned three of them blue, and you just munched the one that's still deadly!" "Hey, get the fruit! OOPS! The monsters are blue now, but you can't see them!" "Hey, here's the third screen! I wonder where the maze went... OOPS!" Hey, my foot slipped and somehow landed in your crotch. OOPS! Now give me my quarter back.

Rompers

No, it's not a brand of diapers, although it really, really sounds like one. Rompers is an early 1990s release that, for all its 16-bit luster, has the soul of an old arcade game... the kind of games Namco did best. Sure, Rompers isn't a Pac-Man caliber oldie, but I would pick this over Grobda or Phozon or the deeply misguided Dig Dug II in a snap.

Now with stretchy sides!

Rompers is what you might call a tip 'em up. Walls are scattered throughout each stage, forming a simple maze, but some of these partitions can be pushed over, crushing whatever is on the other side. This also lets you "tunnel" through the maze a'la Dig Dug (the good one, not the second one) rather than having to wander through the pre-set paths and risk getting smooshed by a falling wall yourself.

It's a pretty good hook. Like I said before, it won't win hearts and minds like Pac-Man did, but there's a good variety of enemies, all with different behavior patterns, you get a healthy supply of bonus items to collect, and it's plenty charming. Your pudgy hero with his oversized hat looks like Tom Sawyer, and the soundtrack has the plucky vintage ambiance of a Little Rascals short. Rompers doesn't have high, genre-defining aspirations... it's just happy to be here, and you're happy to play it.

Super Pac-Man

Would you believe that I was fond enough of this game to write a port of it? This was in... oh, 1996, before emulation made native arcade ports unnecessary. I had a strange fondness for Super Pac-Man, which was amplified by its relative scarcity. At the time, there were very few home conversions of the game available, so I decided to right this wrong by, uh, writing my own MS-DOS port.

In hindsight, perhaps Super Pac-Man did not deserve so much of my devotion (and time... I imagine writing that port took dozens upon dozens of hours!). As Pac-Man games go, it's neither super nor sub-par, but disconcertingly average. Yeah, sure, the fruit prizes are offered in place of dots, upping both the scale and the stakes, and the super energizer is a clever new way to turn the tables on the monsters and even the rules of the game. Can you flip the bird to the maze and break down doors that would otherwise require keys? Yes, you can! Can you jump into the monsters' lair and kick their blue booties for fun and bonus points? Yes, you can! Can you zip through the maze at lickety-split speed by holding down a button? Yes, you can, if you've got the reflexes to turn those sharp corners!

So you fall in love with the super energizer, because of course you do, and you keep playing until the third stage, where the order of the keys gets mixed up and the effects of the super energizer don't last as long and you don't have an honest chance of survival unless you gulp down a big green pill IMMEDIATELY and can cover the span of the maze with the super speed/mistimed turn button held down. Then you realize the maze isn't as intelligently designed as it was in Pac-Man (dead ends? The very idea!) and you start to understand that the novelty of the super energizer isn't enough to hold this game together for longer than those first few stages. Then your inner Super Pac-Man fanboy folds in on himself and goes eya-weeah-weeah-goink-goink.