The other re-imagining, Galaga Legions, is similarly updated with the graphics from the arcade classic brought together with stunning neon visuals and throbbing techno beats. The gameplay here is broken up onto 5 planets, each with several different areas. While the game still feels similar to Galaga, in that you are a space ship who must take down the approaching alien crafts, the experience is blown open in Legions by having the enemies attack from all angles instead of the linear path they followed in the original. You are given a preview of their attack pattern before they come onscreen in the form of a warning line, and you have to move your ship into a position that would be able to take down the oncoming enemy threat efficiently. The gameplay area is then flooded with dozens of enemy creatures, who follow the warning line around the screen as you try and take down the flock. To keep things more interesting, each group includes a “master” ship that is slightly larger than the rest, and taking down that ship destroys the entire wave of enemies, clearing the screen. To aid in your heroic attempts, you can either fire your standard missiles or you can use the right analog stick to drop up to 2 turrets on-screen wherever you choose, which automatically fire in the direction that they were placed. If you are a fan of Galaga, or shooters in general, I highly recommend you try Galaga Legions

While these 2 titles are fantastic fun, figuring out how to play them is not. The apparent lack of effort put forth into this collection is immediately recognizable as soon as you try and load a game, primarily because you can’t actually load anything from the Live Arcade menu on the disk. To play any of the 9 included titles, you have to exit out of Namco Museum, go to the Xbox Dashboard, go to the Games Section, and choose the game you want to play from the Xbox Live Arcade menu just as you would a game that you purchased online. The actual Live Arcade menu on the disk is nothing more than a static screen that tells you how to access the titles. What makes this even more frustrating is that you can’t install these games onto your Hard Drive or Memory Card, so you must always have the Namco Museum disk in the drive when you want to launch a Live Arcade title. It’s a clunky and confusing system that makes these games feel almost like bonus additions rather than the core element of the disc.

The slightly more functional half of this set, the Museum section, actually does let you play its games from the in-game menu. Museum includes 23 arcade classics ported directly from their quarter-munching counterparts, and features titles such as Dig Dug II, Mappy, Pole Position, Galaga ’88, Tower of Druaga, Rolling Thunder, and Pac-Mania. Museum also houses 3 “Arrangement” titles that were originally built for the PSP compilation Namco Museum Battle Collection. These “Arrangements” are remakes of Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug that feature similar gameplay to the original games but with new 3D graphics, extra power-ups, and remixed music.

Of these Museum titles, only Galaga ’88, Mappy, and Pac-Man Arrangement will hold your attention for long. While it is fun to take a stroll down memory lane and play some of Namco’s more obscure arcade titles, their simplistic gameplay and frustrating difficulty will keep most people from coming back. The ports of all of the above are visually and aurally identical to their original arcade counterparts, which can either be a good or bad thing. If you grew up in the era and remember when games used to look and sound like this, you will find the beauty in what is offered, but newer gamers used to complicated 3D graphics might be instantly turned off by what they see and hear.