Namco has been in the game for a very long time, and has amassed quite the collection of everlasting arcade titles. Classics like Mrs. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Galaga are still popular 25+ years after they first hit the scene, and since that time, Namco has found numerous ways to re-release these games on every available piece of hardware, from consoles to cell phones. Namco Museum Virtual Arcade is the latest revision in their series of compilations, this time for Xbox 360. With 34 games, including several 3D remakes and a few completely re-imagined titles, this set seemed to be an arcade enthusiast’s dream come true. Unfortunately, things aren’t always what they seem.

Once you boot up Namco Museum Virtual Arcade, you will be given 2 choices: Live Arcade and Museum. The Live Arcade menu houses 7 direct arcade ports and 2 re-imagined titles, all of which had been previously released on Xbox Live Arcade. The ports are:

• Dig Dug
• Galaga
• Mr. Driller Online
• Mrs. Pac-Man
• New Rally-X
• Pac-Man
• Xevious

All of the above include their own set of 200 achievement points, online leaderboards, colorful menu art, “How to Play” notes, and, in the specific case of Mr. Driller Online, Xbox Live play for up to 4 players. The Live Arcade menu also contains 2 new takes on old classics: Pac-Man Championship Edition and Galaga Legions.

Pac-Man C.E. takes away the multi-level structure of the original and throws the yellow dot-muncher onto a single non-scrolling screen. You pick from one of 6 different modes at the outset, each with a unique level layout and a preset time limit of either 5 or 10 minutes. Once in the game, you see the familiar structure of dots all over the place, maze-like corridors, power-pellets, and 4 ghosts piled into a centralized box, but this is where the similarity ends. Pulsing techno music starts up, the ghosts jet out of their pen, and you notice that, as you clear certain areas of dots, new patches of dots appear elsewhere. The goal of Pac-Man C.E. is to stay alive, collect as many dots as possible, and take down ghosts as often as you can before the timer runs down to 0. The character sprites for Pac-Man and the ghosts are all taken from the original arcade game, but given some beautiful visual touch-ups that make them fit in with the neon, Tron-like world that the characters now inhabit. The gameplay is lightning-fast, way quicker than the original arcade titles, and the difficulty ramps up as you narrowly escape the ghosts’ path trying to last until the clock hits 0. Whether you survive the time limit or not, you get to compare your score with the others in the online leaderboards, and you will feel constantly challenged to do better and ascend the ranks. Highly recommended to any gamer, regardless of how you feel about the original.