The world of business is a funny one. People in bad suits gathered around desks bigger than my house, shouting out numbers and showing flipchart graphs that look like (and make about as much sense as) a Jackson Pollock painting. I don't remember exactly when the games industry turned into just another 'big' business, but I imagine it roughly coincided with the release of the first 'games compilation', the console equivalent of those damn awful Now That's What I Call Music… albums. The main difference between games compilations and those evil blights on music however is this: while the music compilations have the 'best' of whatever tat is around at the time, the games compilations do actually contain classics. The problem, though, is that they were classics before the majority of today's gaming public were even born.

For once, the compilation I'm holding in my hand does promise to be something a bit different - they've called this one a remix. Namco Museum Remix, to be precise, and the majority of the collection's content features a small, yellow character who, legend has it, was originally modelled on a pizza with one slice removed. There are in fact fourteen games available and no less than eight of them contain the ghost fearing, pill-popping ball of fun we know as Pac-Man. Five of these titles (Galaga, Pac'n Roll, Gator Panic, Pac Motos and Rally-X) have been 'remixed', which basically means a 3D graphics and control overhaul. The other nine (including the likes of Galaxian, Dig Dug and Super Pac-Man) are in roughly their original state, and as a result, I don't think it's necessarily fair to judge them on the same criteria as the updated versions. I think the fairest way to assess this compilation is to judge it on the 'remixed' titles, and then look at the additional games as a bonus (like the mini-games we find in so many Wii titles).

At the start of the game you're dropped into what is referred to as the Museum hub, a sort of world map meets garden playground. You need the nunchuk connected from the off (even if you are only intending to play the original games that use the d-pad rather than the analog stick) because there are no menus here - you take control of Pac-Man and you roll him around the hub to get to where you want to go. There are also yellow dots strewn around in tricky to reach places, so you can practice manoeuvring Pac-Man outside of a timed (and ghost-filled) level - and you will need the practice. He is fast, he is slippery, and he bounces and rolls off every slope and every object he meets. It feels like a bizarre cross between Pac-Man and Marble Madness, which for those of you who aren't as old-school (read: old) as I am, was a brilliantly addictive game on the Sega Master System (showing my age again) where you trundled a little ball around an isometric environment, trying to reach the end of the course without falling foul of the slopes and pitfalls (the modern equivalent is the equally fantastic Super Monkey Ball).

The natural place to start, then, is Pac'n Roll Remix, as this is where the hub control method has been taken from. Broadly speaking, this is the old Pac-Man that we know and love, but with an extra dimension. The 3D setting means that there are obstacles, slopes, ramps, and jumps to navigate as you make your way through the world, munching dots and avoiding ghosts (until you get the mighty power pill, where Pac-Man turns into a flaming ball of wrath and fury - I'm not joking, he actually looks really cool). You have to collect enough dots to buy your way through gates, to advance to the next part of the level. That's all, she wrote. The levels are cleverly designed and it's fun to play, but with the speed that Pac-Man moves at, the controls can be a little twitchy and frustrating, and you'll often find that the best way to get around is to rotate the camera (using the d-pad) so that you're always viewing the level from behind Pac-Man and just shoving the analog stick forwards. The graphics are cute and bright, the scrolling is slick and the frame rate is good, but essentially they're functional at best and were limited by the premise.

Galaga Remix is next up, and it's probably the best of the bunch. For those of you who haven't played the original (which is a classic in the truest sense of the word), the premise is fairly simple - Pac-Man, for reasons unknown, is rolling through space in a chute (he gets everywhere, doesn't he?) and along the route of his somewhat surreal journey he comes under attack from the Galaga forces (a large variety of evil space insects, it would appear). Your job is to defend Pac-Man while blasting a path through space for him to roll through. Your Wiimote becomes a light-gun for all intents and purposes, with a targeting cursor on the screen, and the only other control input you have is the ability to make Pac-Man jump on the spot, which can (very occasionally) help him to avoid an incoming attack. The pace of Galaga Remix is just as fast and frenzied as the original and you'll barely ever get a moment to breathe where you're not pumping laser rounds into the oncoming hordes. It looks incredibly surreal but that is part of its appeal; the enemies are all brilliantly colourful and the scrolling is just as fast and slick as the action. The sound is largely incidental and the only thing you'll ever hear above constant laser fire is a beeping sound warning you that Pac-Man is in imminent danger.

Pac Motos Remix is a strange beast. Outwardly, it looks a little like Pac'n Roll Remix, but the graphics aren't quite as tidy or colourful. I confess, I'd not played the original Pac Motos, but it's downright simplistic and easy to play. It is essentially a hybrid of Pac'n Roll, Sumo wrestling and Robot Wars, but without the spotty kids with remote controls and mechanical fires (Robot Wars, not Sumo wrestling). Pac-Man is placed in a small arena with a number of small, round foes, and the objective of the game is to be the last sphere standing. You can push them off the edge of the arena, or through holes in the arena that open up the longer the bout goes on. Beat one set of foes and you progress to a more difficult bout, with more difficult (or sometimes just more) enemies. The difference between this and the other Remix titles is that there are boss battles that take a little more thought, timing and persistence to beat, making for a pleasing change of pace. Unfortunately, the presentation of this game, while functional, doesn't compared well to Pac'n Roll Remix and Galaga Remix.

Rally-X Remix looks quite promising from the outset. In essence, Rally-X is actually just Pac-Man, a sort of fast-paced, maze-based collect 'em up where you must avoid your relentless foes. Replace the dots with flags, the ghosts with rival go-karts, and the transition is made. Pac-Man's go-kart also comes kitted out with some Bond-esque tricks to see off the opposition, such as smoke clouds and nitro bursts of speed, which add to the ways you can approach each level. So there you have it - Pac-Man, in a go-kart, with side-on Wiimote tilt control for the steering - what more could you possibly want? Well, a control system that actually works, for one; play with the Wiimote tilt method and the camera sits in behind Pac-Man's kart, while you throw the control left or right to go around the bends. Unfortunately, this is so unresponsive and the level of force and degree of tilt you have to apply to your Wiimote is not only unreasonably large, but it seems to vary at random times - sometimes you'll slide round the corners with ease with a tiny flick of the wrist, and sometimes you'll turn the Wiimote through 270 degrees and still get nothing. This is incredibly frustrating in a game where the enemies are always so close on your tail, and your ability to nip into different sections of the maze at the last second is vital. It appears that the developers have realised that this control method is absolutely woeful, and they offer a nunchuk-based analog stick alternative (but that begs the question, if you know it is so bad then why leave it in and offer an alternative, rather than spend time putting it right?). The problem is that this control method is almost as twitchy and unreliable as the Wiimote method, and sometimes you find yourself having to steer in a completely opposite direction to get the kind of response you require.

Speaking of bad control methods, the final 'remix' game is Gator Panic Remix. Gator Panic's gameplay is shamelessly pilfered from the whack-a-mole arcade premise, except without the fun of the giant foam-covered mallet. In the original arcade version you moved your cursor around the different targets (alligators, obviously) and hit a big red button to smack them on the head (with Pac-Man, who is inexplicably trying to defend a turtle standing on a rock in front of the marauding gators). This control scheme has changed a little, but not enough to save it. Rather than the big red button, you now swing the Wiimote in a hammer-fashion when you want to hit a gator, which is a nice idea that's ruined by two fairly fundamental flaws. Firstly, the motion recognition isn't very reliable (as in Rally-X Remix) and what constitutes a successful swing one minute might not do the next. Secondly, and far more critically, the original Gator Panic idea of choosing your target with the joystick is rotten - abysmal, appalling, without merit. It is jumbled, it is confusing, it is counter-intuitive and it should have been banished into gaming history's big bin of bad ideas along with "I know - we can use audio cassettes as a storage medium" and "don't worry about rushing out Dragon Quest VII - Final Fantasy VII isn't going to be very good...". Aside from that, the presentation is pretty poor in a non-descript kind of way - there is nothing wrong with it per se, but compared to Galaga Remix and Pac'n Roll Remix, it just looks as though it was cobbled together in two minutes (with reject extras from Croc: Legend of the Gobbos).

It is a shame, then, that the first compilation game with any real promise has turned out to be a bit of a letdown. Pac'N Roll Remix and Galaga Remix are undoubtedly fun and were well worth a remake (although I would rather have seen them as a download from the Nintendo Online Store than as part of a compilation), but it is hard to see why anything else here was worth saving from that great arcade in the sky. The graphics and sound are about average for a modern title, which is truly going some for an arcade history compilation, but decent presentation cannot rescue a title that has some enormous gameplay problems.

Chief among these is that it feels like such a waste of time porting these games to the Wii when only Galaga Remix makes any coherent use of the Wii's innovative control system. Rally-X Remix and Gator Panic Remix try, but are virtually uncontrollable, while Pac'N Roll Remix and Pac Motos Remix don't even bother, and the original games (I told you I'd get to those eventually) feel like they're pointlessly tagged on. They use the Wiimote horizontally like an old-fashioned controller (with d-pad and two buttons) and have less going for them than mini-games that are bundled in with current big releases (that you just know were created in about five minutes by the work experience kid and still manage to be more fun and make better use of the Wii system than these).

The biggest crime though, and one that is unforgivable by the very definition of the remake/compilation genre, is the collections longevity. These are supposed to be classics that should be able to stand the test of time, but I played each game for about five minutes before I got bored (or frustrated with the poor controls) and moved on to the next one. At five minutes each for fourteen games, that totals little more than an hour's play. You can multiply that by roughly two given that some of the games have multiplayer modes, but there is nothing here to keep you playing for more than an evening at best (and it would have to be an evening with a very poor television line-up).

Sadly then, while the games in this compilation might have been arcade classics in their day, they don't really stand the test of time and certainly don't benefit from the Wii's motion sensing mechanics. As such, Namco Museum Remix is like a trip to a real museum - educational and interesting to a degree, but ultimately something that is over pretty quickly and that you won't want to revisit any time soon.

Reviewed by Tom Baines for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).