Who likes a nostalgia-laced trip down memory lane? Raise your hands.
According to Joystiq , the PlayStation Network will soon receive the very epitome of "old-school:" Namco Museum Essentials . It's slated to release in downloadable form this July, and it will include classic favorites like Pac-Man , Dig-Dug , Xevious , and Galaga , all displayed in a beautiful "re-envisioned" 1080p format. We'll get Trophies (can you imagine how tough some of them might be?!), leaderboards, and better yet, "players will be able to unlock PlayStation Home rewards to proudly display in their virtual apartments." It's like having one of those old arcade cabinets in your place and braggin' about it. Along with the release of the Essentials , Namco Bandai will also launch a new space within Home that will "serve as the hub for all of" the publisher's impending downloadable titles. They'll give us a free demo of the game in question in the virtual arcade, plus new Home items. For those of you who recall the golden age of gaming when the arcades were the place to be, all of this probably resurrects some old memories, right? Well, we imagine you'll be able to nab Namco Museum Essentials for a pretty fair price when it drops next month.
We all need a break from the huge next-gen blockbuster releases every now and then. Personally, I use my SNES for that break, but to each his own. Super Mario Kart FTW!
Related Game(s): Namco Museum Essentials
I'm glad this is finally getting here.
Let the nostalgia begin! Man, does this ever bring me back, and I'm not even that old! I'm looking forward to Galaga and Dig-dug the most!
Darn it! Now all those Namco goodies I managed to get in Home using the down-laodable Demo of this from Japan will be in the hands of everyone….
😉
As tes37 says, I'm glad this is getting a NA release at last.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 6/17/2009 11:17:49 PM
I did the same thing, but downloaded from the Hong Kong store.
Indeed, took quite a while for it to finally come to the US
Cool Ben,
This is some really good news!
Now some of our newest gamers just starting out can have a chance to experience what us older guys(& some hard-core gamers gals) did!
(That is if they're not going to get too anal about some of the game's early cave-man graphics.)
Them youngins won't understand. At least not until they get older and try to convince the next generation of gamers how awesome MGS4 was.
Hey Highlander,
I remember that a lot of other major companies during the 1st Playstation era put out their own greatest hits collections too, just like Namco did by putting out 5 different collections sets of their museum hits.
In my PS1 collection, I also have some of those other companies that put out greatest hits(though I'm still missing a few volumes) so I thought I'd share, just for memory's sake(I've added a few of the games that are inside each set)…
Activision's Classic Games Collection: (Atlantis, Kaboom, Grand Prix, Pitfall, Stampede)
Arcades Greatest Hits: Atari Collections #1 (Astroids, Centipede, Super Breakout, Tempest)
Arcades Greatest Hits: Atari Collections #2 (Paperboy, Gauntlet, RoadBlasters, Marble Madness)
Arcades Greatest Hits: Midway Collection #2 (Blaster, Burgertime, Spy Hunter)
Arcades Greatest Hits: Williiams Collection (Bobbles, Defender, Joust 1&2, Robotron 2004, Sini Star)
Namco Museum Vol. 1 (Pac-Man, Pole Position, Galaga, Rally-X)
Namco Museum Vol. 2 (Xevious, Mappy, Dragon Buster, Gaplus, Super Pac-Man)
Namco Museum Vol. 3 (Galaxian, Dig-Dug, Ms Pac-man, Phazan, Tower of Druaga)
Namco Museum Vol. 4 (Assault, Return of Ishtar, Ordyne, The Genie & the Heike Clans)
Namco Museum Vol. 5 (Metro-Cross, Baraduke, Dragon Spirit, Legend of Valkrie, Pac-Mania)
So how many of these arcade games do you remember, putting a quarter, after quarter, after quarter into the machines like I did with Pac-Man, Centipede, Pitfall, Stampede, Tempest, & BurgerTime???
LOL! way, way too many. I've been picking up these collections from the used games bins for years, and have a few collections of them on my PSP as well…
Grand Prix, check, Pitfall, check, Asteroids/Centipede/SuperBreakout/Tempest Check, Paperboy, Gauntlet(tooooooo many quarters….)/Marble Madness check, Burgertime/Spy Hunter check, Defender/Joust/Robotron/sinistar(way too many quarters) check, Pacman(quarters, and quarters)/PolePosition/Galaga/Rally-X, Xevious/Mappy/Super PacMan check, Galaxian (oh yes, quarters)/DigDug/Ms Pac-Man, Phazan check…
My arcade sins of note were Outrun, Sinistar, Gauntlet, BomberJack and the original vector graphics StarWars game – analog control yoke, digitized sound, and all that jazz. I spent heaven alone knows how much playing Star Wars. Personally, I think that the Star Wars arcade game has yet to be bettered by any arcade game of the same or similar genre.
Missing from this list are;
Space Invaders, Missile Command, Battlezone, MoonCresta and Phoenix…
Uh-oh, Elf needs food badly! Gotta run!
Yes!
About time you know it better be released in Europe since I WANTZ PACMAN & GALAGA!!
Are they going to have this located under publishers section like Capcom is? i think Capcoms the only publisher right now that has their own page on the PSN no?
Last edited by Jawknee on 6/18/2009 10:13:10 AM
I feel like I'm shouting into a brick wall when I say to bring tekken 3 to PSN, it got about the same review scores as MGS and FFVII but nobody seems to care.
Is this the same one that was released on the 360 a while back ? I got that as it wasn't on the PS3 at the time.
I love playing retro stuff, the only ones I didnt get were the Atari Anthology and the Midway ones as I looked at the games on each and decided it was not worth a purchase as I have most of the old favourites now.
I can remember putting coin after coin in too Biker haha the good ole days when you could spend hours in the arcades with your mates and then go home and only dream of the days when you would have games that good in your house and now look what we have.
Last edited by tlpn99 on 6/18/2009 11:00:24 AM
100% agreed, I could only dream about having something capable of arcade quality graphics in days gone by.
Tekken 6 is the perfect example today. The arcade game actually runs on slightly modified PS3 hardware, so brushing the game up for a retail release on PS3 wasn;t exactly a hardship for Namco….
Last edited by TheHighlander on 6/18/2009 11:13:34 AM