NAMCO Museum

A big thing I want to do with this blog is talk about games that I have little interest in. Okay, that may not be the best lead in for this but hear me out. I want to talk about specific games or specific gaming topics that I find interesting or have respect for but don't really enjoy playing or engaging in. Today's topic is a perfect example of this. NAMCO is one of those storied developers. They have pretty much been around since the birth of the video game industry. And while I respect what they have done for this industry I just don't enjoy playing their games all that much and that just.. feels.. wrong. Those who follow the podcast know I love video game history so it surprises me even more that I don't enjoy their games. But with all that said, the NAMCO Museum games are surprisingly fun and totally worth a visit. Especially for you video game history fans out there.

I want the next couple posts that I write to cover the various volumes of the NAMCO Museum series. However, I am honestly not 100% sure there is enough to talk about in each volume that can fill a blog post for each volume but dammit I am going to try. So for today we are going to begin with NAMCO Museum Volume 1.

The first volume of the Museum series consists of 7 different classic NAMCO games. Pac-Man, Bosconian, Galaga, Pole Position, Rally-X, New Rally-X and Toy Pop. Like I said I'm not the biggest fan of NAMCO's classic titles and if this series was just a compilation of those titles I wouldn't be all too impressed with it. Besides since some of these games are so iconic I will probably do episodes of the podcast on them and dive further into their history. But what makes the NAMCO Museum series stick out is the literal museum aspect of it. In this compilation series you can either chose to play the games or you can chose to “visit” the NAMCO Museum. If you select the museum option from the menu the game will let you explore the museum in first person. You wander around looking at all the exhibits it has to offer. Not surprisingly there is an exhibit for each game on the collection and as boring as this sounds the museum was the most interesting part about the entire game for me.

Before I dive into the museum in full you can see a full video of the museum tour for NAMCO Museum Volume 1 HERE.

In each exhibit you will find scans of promotional material, instruction cards, sprite libraries and more for each of the games in the collection. At the end of each exhibit they have a 3D rendering of what the arcade cabinet for each game. You can then walk up the cabinet and play the game there! It's a crude representation of an arcade but it is still pretty cool they would add something like that. In the video linked the player starts out in the exhibit for the game Toy Pop.

Prior to researching this I had honestly never heard of this arcade game before. It was released in 1986, which was 3 years before I was born so it was out of arcades by the time I really got to experience it. On a side note I also did not really go to arcades at all as a kid which probably contributed to me never seeing this game, so that's two strikes against me. The first thing you are able to view in this exhibit is a sales promotion pamphlet from 1986. You can then select a larger version of the scan and zoom into various points and take a good look at it. Sadly since this is a PS1 title the scans are NOT really the highest quality. The player then progresses and views Toy Pop stationary, a POP card (which was a card placed on the side of the arcade cabinet), an instruction card, finally a tip book that offers tips on how to get better at the game and finally a picture scan of the actual arcade board that was inside the cabinets.

Each game's exhibit has different things like these on display. And while I find this interesting I don't want to bore all of you. I mean where is the fun in mean just describing what's in a video when I already provided a link to watch it. After writing all of this I'm really starting to realize that there isn't much insight I could provide for the other games in this series. But if this type of thing would interest you reach out to me! I would be happy to write more posts about this series. You can see all my social media links at the bottom of this web page or contact me via the contact page on this site.

It is honestly amazing to me how much detail they put into these museum segments. The first volume was released in 1995 and as someone who likes video game history a great deal I can't help but love that NAMCO took to the time to document and archive all of this. Unfortunately not every game developer takes the time to do this and a lot of video game history is lost. But thankfully NAMCO preserved it and I am looking forward to diving more into their museum series personally. Whether it be for the blog or just for fun!

Super Smash Bros. Speculation

With April coming up and the first of the Smash Ultimate DLC characters expected to be released at some point within that month (Joker for those who don’t know) we here at Still Loading decided now was a good chance to fire up that old speculation train and list our hopeful top 5 possible DLC characters that could fill out those remaining 4 DLC slots.

Since Smash Ultimate’s release we’ve already seen two characters added to the huge roster, Piranha Plant and the currently Unreleased Joker. Nintendo’s tight lips when it comes to smash has led to many speculations and rumors. So without further hesitation let's get into our top five.

Number 5.

Yooka-Laylee

Starting off the list we have probably not everyone’s (or even anyone’s) first choice of a DLC character the duo protagonist team of Yooka and Laylee. Now hear me out on this one, the first reason as to why Yooka-Laylee would be a good fit to the Smash Universe is obvious. The game is on the platform. The game released back in Dec 14, 2017 to not the greatest reception but before critics and gamers got their hands on it, it was a shining light for those Banjo-Kazooie hopefuls that have been holding out for a third installment, and with a team of some of the original designers over at Playtonic games there was a good amount of hype for this one. Now ignoring the actual reception of the game, for years now there has been a lot of talk and championing for the Bird and Bear duo to show up in a Smash game. Despite having so many reddit posts and multiple polls across the internet showing support for the idea, the likelihood of Nintendo having this now Microsoft owned character as DLC (though not impossible) is highly unlikely. This is where Yooka-Laylee can fill that gap, Playtonic is an indie dev with no big third party allegiance, most of the employees there is old Rare staff so they already have a repertoire with Nintendo and could easily pitch themselves into a Smash role. Additionally we know Nintendo loves to show those indie devs support and not only that but Yooka-Laylee is already an available character in the game Brawlout which is available for the Switch, which almost cuts the work in half for Nintendo as they they can see how the character can function in a fighting game setting and adjust for the needs of Smash.

Number 4.

Goemon (Mystical Ninja Series)

Now this one is a personal favorite of mine. Goemon is the main protagonist of the short run (at least in the US and EU) series Mystical Ninja. The series itself has seen a run of games from 1996 to 2005 roughly most of the releases being contained to Japan, though the games we did receive in this series were available on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64. These games were developed and published by Konami themselves and already having characters represented in Smash Bros. they could easily green light the use of this character.

Goemon would be a great addition to the cast being a vibrant character with a number of shinobi attack options (think sheik). High mobility and quick zoning with his Kiseru(Chainpipe) and throwable coins could make him a fun character to play given they handle him like the ninja he is. His ultimate smash would obviously be the giant mech Goemon Impact that he could summon and jump into, to deliver devastating punches to the foes on the stage.

Number 3.

Waluigi (Nintendo)

Obviously the internet's number one pick for these spots, though not mine, I can see why he needs to be implemented. Leaving Waluigi out is just unfair to one of Nintendo's most recognizable characters. Though never appearing in his own game like his counterpart his participation in a number of games across multiple Nintendo platforms shows that Nintendo hasn’t completely forgotten about him all together. He already has his own amiibo for god’s sake! Though left to a secondary role as an assist trophy, Nintendo needs to flip that developer switch we all know they have and make him a main fighting character. No more second fiddle to the rest of the Mario cast! Come on Nintendo if Daisy gets her own spot in Smash then you better be saving the best seat in the house for this purple powerhouse.

Number 2.

Wang Tang (Power Stone Series)

Power Stone has been one of my long time favorite arcade style fighting games. I originally experienced this game in the arcades, though also released on the Dreamcast. I loved how it set itself apart from other arcade fighters at the time by allowing players to fight in a 3D space with fast paced action and the ability to use your surroundings to your advantage either it being an environmental hazard or weapons that spawned during matches. Wang Tang is a fast paced Martial artist that could be an interesting addition to the Smash roster. His fighting style would be great for interesting combo options and being from the powerstone series, instead of a traditional Final Smash like the rest of the cast he could collect powerstones that drop from other fighters. This obviously would be something only he could benefit from but could be balanced by allowing enemy fighters to recollect the stones to prevent his transformation ability. Once three power stones are collected Wang Tang then transforms into his Golden form for a limited time allowing him access to the moveset he has in his Power Stone series. Personally, I would love to see him implemented but could see the challenges Nintendo might face making a 3D fighter work in 2D.

Number 1.

Viewtiful Joe (Viewtiful Joe, Marvel vs Capcom)

And the number one pick is easily for me Viewtiful Joe. This one just makes the most sense. His game series originally debuted on the Gamecube and at a time was exclusive to the platform. Capcom has already allowed Nintendo to use their most iconic character and I think that Joe would be a nice additional character to rep the Capcom team. He already has a number of movesets that could be implemented into the game, these not just coming from his main series but his appearance in MvC3 and his appearance on the Wii in Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All Stars. Joe also had been placed in his own “Smash Like” type fighting game Red Hot Rumble on the Gamecube (which wasn’t very good unfortunately). For these reasons he would be the easiest character to fall into one of these DLC spots and not just that, but he’s a great character with a great personality to add to the diverse Smash cast. Nintendo needs to make this one happen.

Oh my Blog!

Hello all this is Josh and welcome to the Still Loading blog!

This is going to serve as some additional gaming content for all of you who follow the podcast or my social media posts. As creator of Still Loading I have been wanting to do this for quite a while. The main thing stopping me from starting up the blog was just time and energy. And maybe a little bit of motivation problems as well. But to combat those problems I’ve enlisted some of my friends who like to write and also love video games.

Starting tomorrow and continuing every Friday new content will be posted to this blog. I’m planning on having it cover a wide variety of gaming topics. Some topics maybe aren’t big enough to devote a full episode of the podcast to, (and trust me you’ve seen episodes of mine where there isn’t a lot to talk about) so I wanted to start up this blog finally to be able to devote at least a little something to those topics.

Now I want to stress this. I am not a writer. Writing has never been one of my strong suits. My grammar is not the greatest and I tend to write how I speak which doesn’t really help my poor grammar skills. Thankfully you will not be hearing only my voice on this blog. I mentioned in the first paragraph that I have a few friends who agreed to help

Andy Landis: Website, Twitter - Andy is the author of the book The Unknown Hunt (Available on Amazon!) and has been a lifelong video game fanatic.

Vin Barratta: Vin is an animator and illustrator with a passion for video games and their history.

I am still going to be looking for more contributors to join our little team but I am beyond happy to have my friends joining me on this endeavor and I hope you all enjoy the new content too!