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'Rally-X Rumble' trademarked by Namco
The next game in Namco's "Generations" series of creatively updated retro games may be a Rally-X revival. Siliconera found a European trademark for "Rally-X Rumble," filed at the end of last month. In case you never explored the filler games on your Namco Museum collections, Rally-X was a top-down maze game, essentially Pac-Man with cars, released in arcades in 1980. Players collect flags around the maze, while avoiding red enemy cars and stunning them with smokescreens. No matter how weird you might think it is to bring this game back, it's still not the weirdest revival. That's Dancing Eyes. Aero-Cross follows pretty closely.
Namco goes insane after too many Namco Museum releases
The major complaint about Namco's Museum series of retro compilations is that they're just too faithful to their arcade counterparts. People don't want exact arcade translations anymore, they want games remade unrecognizably in 3D! They want Pac-Man randomly inserted into every game!At least, that seems to be Namco Bandai's thinking. Either that or they weren't sure how else to rerelease games they're already selling on the Virtual Console. The result is Namco Museum Remix, a set of Namco classics, now with more waggle, depth, and Pac! The remixed games include Galaga, Pac-Motos, Rally-X, Gator Panic, and Pac 'n Roll, which is apparently a classic now despite not even being two years old. For that matter, Gator Panic seems to be based on a cell phone game which is itself based on the Whack-a-Mole like redemption game, and we have no idea what Pac-Motos was originally. Interesting what passes for "classics" these days!In addition to the remixes, the collection includes Cutie Q, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Gaplus, Mappy, Pac & Pal, Pac-Mania, Super Pac-Man, and Xevious. We poke fun at Namco for selling the same games over and over again, but this is an okay selection of somewhat less common stuff! Sorry to everyone who bought NES Xevious on the Virtual Console.Check out our gallery of screens from the remixed games. Some are faithful, like Rally-X, and others are completely incomprehensible, like the image at the top of this post, which is supposed to be Galaga.%Gallery-3280%
Old 'New Rally-X' on Xbox Live Arcade
Hopes for a brilliant finale have been dashed with Microsoft's last Xbox Live Arcade release of 2006. After a run of indie titles (Small Arms, RoboBlitz, Assault Heroes, and Novadrome), Microsoft is back to 80s rehashes with New Rally-X today; "New" as in the 1981 sequel to 1980's Rally-X. It's Pac-Man on wheels.Perhaps this dull offering is merely a setup for next week's New Year surprise, but to end '06 on this low note is certainly a disappointment. Imagine if Castle Crashers or Worms had shown up this morning -- or even that original shooter from the Ikaruga team. Or how about Goldeneye? Or Symphony of the Night? Instead, it's New Rally-X. Ugh.
