Namco Museum

Released: 10/9/2002

Publisher: Namco

Going Price: Averaging $15 at eBay Stores (Used)

Price Per Game: $1.25 (125 Wii Points)

Total Cost for VC Equivalent: 6000 Wii Points* ($60)

Namco's legendary arcade arsenal includes Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig-Dug and Pole Position. Those four games, along with the sequels and derivatives of each, are among the set of 12 that make up the multi-platform Namco Museum. Aside from the five Pac-Man games, including the 3D Pac-Mania and the puzzler Pac-Attack, the stars of this disc are the special arrangement versions of each of the four games. Each one is an updated re-working of the original, with some snazzy graphics and new gameplay hooks.

If you want the Namco arrangements, by all means, get this game. However, they aren't enough to keep Namco Museum afloat for very long. With only four main games things can start to become more of the same, and to make matters worse there aren't any bonus materials. Namco's arcade greats are timeless, but there are better compilations out there that have more variety. For instance...

Namco Museum 50th Anniversary

Released: 8/23/2005

Publisher: Namco

Going Price: Either side of $20 on eBay

Price Per Game: $1.25 (125 Wii Points)

Total Cost for VC Equivalent: 8000 Wii Points* ($80)

This is more like it. Namco put an effort in to their 50th anniversary product and the result is their best compilation to date. In addition to including never-before-released games like Sky Kid and Rolling Thunder (pictured), Namco created a kickin' rad menu, with 80's tunes blaring and a full rendition of each arcade cabinet. Just like the arcades back in the day, but without the quarters. Or the hair spray.

The 16 games include three Galaga variations, three versions of Pac-Man, a few shoot-'em-ups, some action games, a couple of racing games and whatever the hell kind of game Dig-Dug is, so there's enough variety to keep you coming back. However, it also lacks bonus materials, so we're only going to recommend this one to fans of Namco classics. Looking back at how many Americans caught Pac-Man fever during the 80's, that's still a lot of people we're recommending it to.

Intellivision Lives!

Released: 11/4/2004

Publisher: Crave Entertainment

Going Price: A couple are $13.99 at eBay Stores (New!)

Price Per Game: $0.23 (23 Wii Points)

Total Cost for VC Equivalent: 18000 Wii Points** ($180)

Remember this game console? Intellivision Lives! includes 60 Intellivision games from the Atari rival's library. Unfortunately, the game list excludes third party games and any game that used a license, so many favorites are not included. Most of what remains won't hold up today unless you played them in the past and nostalgia kicks in. The experience is superficially similar to playing an Atari 2600, but with cleaner graphics (thanks to the 16 bit CPU) and more complex gameplay (thanks to the 15 button controller).

The biggest issue with the compilation is that the aforementioned controller simply doesn't map well to any modern input device. The real thing features a 12 button keypad, four side buttons and a control disk that is sensitive to 16 directions, rather than eight. The disk maps somewhat naturally to an analog stick, but the keypad doesn't map well to a controller (you can use the C-stick along with the buttons for clumsy direct access or you can bring up a virtual pad for slow games). The result is that simple games are playable, and complex games with slow action are somewhat playable. A number of games that fully use the pad and require quick reflexes are virtually unplayable or else greatly marred. Ultimately, we can't recommend this compilation when it falls so far short of the real thing.

*Estimating 500 Wii Points per 80s era arcade game download. (Arcade games are not available on Virtual Console.)

**Generously estimating 300 Wii Points per Intellivision game download, since Nintendo would probably charge more for them than that. (Intellivision games are not available on Virtual Console.)