Many of you will have guessed based on the high number of Virtual Console focused posts here that I’m a big fan of classic arcade and retro games … so you can imagine my excitement when I discovered this release in the works: Namco Museum Remix for the Wii.

I’m really looking forward to this one, assuming that the versions of games like Pac Man (sadly, not Ms. Pac Man) are good emulated arcade versions. There will be 14 games in total, including five ‘remixed’ titles which are loosely based on the original retro versions but have new 3D graphics and Wii Remote motion controls.

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To tell the truth, I don’t really care all that much about the ‘remixed’ versions … essentially they will be entirely new games with no real similarity to the retro versions. The ‘remixes’ may be good games in their own right if they turn out to be playable with the new control scheme, but for me most of the appeal of retro games is the clean simple 2D graphics and bold bleepy sound. There are reasons why old games like Galaga are considered classics and can still be sold even today … they are still fun to play. Galaga doesn’t need some unproven 3D remix gimmick to make it any better, it works just fine as-is. Going 3D just adds extra visual complexity and usually spoils things. But we will see ….

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Below is a video of the Rally-X ‘remix’, followed by the Galaga ‘remix’ which is essentially a rail-based shooter ala Duck Hunt (or for a modern Wii game comparison, it’s like the shooting levels in Rayman Raving Rabbids). The ‘remix’ has no real similarity to Galaga, but looks like it could be fun in it’s own right.

Namco Museum Remix is slated for release in October on North America … god knows when Australia will get it (at least it’s not an in-house first-party Nintendo title … that could take forever).

More at: 1Up and Gamespot.