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Wii Fanboy Review: Namco Museum Remix
Even while gawking at the bizarre screenshots of Namco Museum Remix, I secreted away a bit of genuine hope in my heart. I had more interest in this game than I dared tell anyone. More than any other game, I saw the potential in Namco Museum Remix to express the Wii's charm to the widest possible audience. A retrogaming minigame collection, in my mind, was the perfect second Wii game for casual gamers or parties, combining the gee-whiz factor of Wii motion controls with familiar, beloved games. The reborn classics would interest retrogamers and lapsed gamers who have missed out on the last few years of video games; the unmodified arcade games on the disc would allow them to reconnect with "traditional" gaming. It would combine the strengths of Wii Sports and the Virtual Console, using the relative simplicity of old games as a substitute for casual-focused design. Somehow this potential allowed me to react positively to a demo of the game.I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person who put so much hope into this game, which means that the reality of Namco Museum Remix hurts me more than it hurts anyone on Earth. The game, then, feels like a personal insult.
Namco Museum Remix mixes in Miis
NamcoBandai hit us up with a press release, chock full of new screens (see them in the gallery below) as well as a new trailer for Namco Museum Remix. The trailer even shows some of the Mii integration the game offers. And, as you can imagine, we're dying to get this game in our hands and into our Wii.%Gallery-3280%[Via press release]
Wii Warm Up: Greatest hits
The Namco Museum Remix collection includes, in addition to wacky, waggly remakes of arcade classics like Galaga, authentic emulated classic games. Just a few days after the first Neo Geo game became available on the Virtual Console, SNK announced their intention to release King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown collections on disc.We don't mind buying collections on disc, since they're inevitably cheaper than buying even a few of the games separately on the Virtual Console. How do you feel, though? Do these collections make the Virtual Console redundant? Is there room for both? What are the advantages of one approach over another?
PAX 07: Namco Museum Remix is still weird, but also fun
I checked out Namco Museum Remix at PAX (there was not a line at any point for this game), hoping to play the weirdo Galaga interpretation and all the other new games on the disc. I expected to be either put off or unimpressed by everything but the real classic arcade games, but ... well, I have a confession to make, and I'm not sure how you guys are going to take it. I really enjoyed Gator Panic Remix, for reasons I can't fully explain. I shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did. It's a simple Whack-a-Mole style game, which is an obvious fit for the Wiimote. However, instead of just whacking in the appropriate direction, you first highlight the appropriate gator with the Nunchuk's analog stick, and then whack. It never occurred to me that this was an imperfect setup until I got home. I was actually too busy having a good time. Again, I don't have an excuse. Gator Panic may not be worth $50 on its own, but it's one of those things that seems like it would be hard not to enjoy at least a little. Maybe that's some unconscious desperation to promote retrogaming at work, or maybe it's a reaction against the new, flashy FPS games I could see from where I was playing Namco Museum, but it just made me happy.
Wii Warm Up: The second tier
Let's put aside the big three for a bit. We all know everyone wants Metroid, Smash Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy. Oh, and Wii Fit. There are a lot of lower-profile games coming out this year that are every bit as compelling. We're thinking about stuff like NiGHTS, the Nintendo-published Endless Ocean, and-- why not?-- even Namco Museum Remix. Someone out there must be more interested in Dewy's Adventure, for example, than Metroid Prime 3. What about you? Which one of the "smaller" upcoming games has done the best job of capturing your attention?
Namco Museum Remix: Galaga, Rally-X details
Game|Life's Chris Kohler played the wacky reinterpretation of Galaga found on the new Namco Museum Remix, and somehow came out of it cogent enough to describe the surreal experience. Basically, Pac-Man is rolling down a slide in space, for some reason, and players have to protect him by shooting the Galaga ships that come down to attack him for some reason. You aim at the little ships with the Wiimote pointer. If Galaga '88 was Galactic Dancing, this is Galactic-- okay, we don't know what it is. We're still pretty confused about the whole idea. Kohler also played Rally-X, which was basically a 3D remake of the original arcade game (which itself is basically Pac-Man). While Galaga is rife with Wiimote integration, Rally-X is more staid and relies on the analog stick and shoulder buttons.
More fodder for the Katamari rumor fire
While there's still no official, announcement-style confirmation that Beautiful Katamari is coming to the Wii, we're tentatively jumping up and down with glee around the Wii Fanboy offices. The rumors have been glomming together into a beautiful, spherical whole, we're almost convinced that the King of All Cosmos will be decrying our lack of rolling skill this winter. Several sites are reporting that references to the Wii title are popping up everywhere -- most recently on GameFly, showing a release date in November. Blogosphere detectives also stumbled across a listing for Namco Museum Remix on the Wii, a title that seems somewhat superfluous considering we have the Virtual Console ... unless something special is done to update the collection. That's definitely something to watch.On the Katamari front, however, and we must stress this "however" quite strongly -- this latest "confirmation" could simply be a matter of GameFly picking up other rumors. We've seen retail slip-ups and placeholders spawn rumors before, and they often come to naught. But with so much buzz around it, we hope to hear something one way or another from Namco on the possibility of a Wii Katamari title. Creator Keita Takahashi hasn't hesitated to speak up before ... but perhaps the smashing success of the Wii has changed a few minds? We'll keep you posted.
