A must-have for classic gaming fans.
For instance, Pacman & Ms. Pacman are great old school games and it's fantastic seeing a perfect port of them onto the PSP. But the new version of Pacman Arrangement brings a whole new flair to the genre by adding updated graphic, a couple of cool powerups, and varied level design. Although Mappy is one of my all time favorite arcade classic games, and I'm so happy it finally is getting the credit it deserves, the new version of Galaga is so freaking awesome I'm completely addicted to it. The graphics and game design are by far one of the best updates for any classic game. And the new ship powerups are so cool! You can have up to 9 different fire modes in the new Galaga and the enemy attacks are just and great as the original with added AI and bosses to make it even more fun.
But to be honest, what made me almost wet myself wasn't the new version of the game, but the fact that Namco actually thought about the conveniences of the user and added some simple features to make users keep coming back the game. The first thing you should do is go to the options menu and setup your games the way you want to play them. Turn on autosave so you can show off your high scores (FINALLY!!!) to your friends, or better yet, rotate the screen of your joystick-only games and then choose the "fit to screen" ratio. Now you have an arcade perfect version of Ms. Pacman that is the full length and width of the PSP screen! If you can't live with just joystick-only games being full screen, you can adjust the purpose of the analog stick to be the fire button on Galaga, Digdug, Mappy, and the other games. I personally would have preferred to be able to use the L button for that, but at least it's something.
Finally, even though I cannot say how great this collection is, I have to mention one minor thing. I honestly don't know why Namco included the non-classic games becasuse they really, really, really suck. Maybe some fan out there will aprreciate them, but to be honest, I sorta remember them from trolling around arcades in my teens and these are the games that nobody played unless they were trying an arcade game for the first time. The type of game that may have turned you or your parents off to arcade gaming all together thanks to the accidental dropping of a coin into the wrong game slot.
That said, don't let the few crappy games deter you from getting this collection because the classic games and the new arrangements of the top 4 classics are THAT good and make this UMD worth every penny! To summarize for your convenience, these are the games "greatness" in order...
Super Awesome:
1) Galaga Arrangement
2) Mappy
3) Galaga original
4) Ms. Pacman
5) Rolling Thunder
6) Dig Dug original
Pretty Fantastic:
1) Pacman Arrangement
2) Dig Dug Arrangement
3) RallyX Arrangement
4) Xevious
5) Rally-X
Really Great:
1) Pac-Man original
2) Galaxian
3) New Rally-X
4) Dig Dug II
Kinda Cool:
1) Bosconian
2) King & Balloon
3) Grobda
Ummm WTF?
1) The Tower of Druaga
2) Dragon Buster
3) Motos