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Rating: 
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Namco Museum sets out to allow you to play several classic video games on your GBA, and that is exactly what it does. The graphics and sounds are authentic, though the graphics are by necessity a bit small. The controls are simple and straight-forward, and for the most part, function smoothly. My only complaint with the way the games are presented here is that you cannot save your high scores. But that's a minor point.
So to decide if you need this game, just look at what's included, and see how fondly you remember them. Dig Dug was my favorite of the lot, and the reason I bought it. It's just as I remembered it, here, but doesn't seem as much fun as it used to be. Still a nice diversion. Ms. Pac-Man offers two choices of game play, either full-screen or a larger, scrolling screen. Perhaps not as addicting to today's jaded gamer as it was in its heyday, but still fun. I was never that into Galaga, but I'd have to say its the funnest game of the lot. Galaxian is okay, but pales in comparison to Galaga. And last and most certainly least, Pole Position (which I remeber being fond of when it first came out) has clumsy controls and is incredibly tedious. But you can make your own call on the games; they're here, just as you remember them, at a reasonable price.
Rating: 
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When the GBA came out, the choices of games made for the system were few. This was one of them. Now relegated to the bargain bin in many a store, I feel a need to stick up for it. This game is one of the great ones you can play and be addicted to for hours. The games of the early 80's were so simple, yet so addicting. Video games now sometimes tend to focus on the graphics much more so then the game itself. This game is the opposite. It's nice to play these games (especially DigDug), and not have to buy a strategy guide to be able to understand it. Highly recommended game for anyone. Great game for young children as there is no reading involved which would lead to the game being fustrating, but excellent for anyone else as well.
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I love this game. I got it for my daughter for Christmas. I ended up playing it so much I had to get my own Game boy.
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This is game is so cool! Anyone who is old enough to remember going to the arcade in the 80's will absolutely love this game! Each of the five games on this cartridge (Ms. Pac Man, Pole Position, Dig Dug, Galaga, and Galaxian) looks and sounds just like the old arcade games, and far, far better than your old Atari 2600 ever did! I highly recommend this game!
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Namco's reputation for developing great and influential games is deserved, but some older games have survived the passage of time better than others. The evolutionary dead ends -- fantastic ideas that simply didn't influence successive generations of games in obvious ways (Joust, Warlords, Missile Command, Marble Madness) -- are the really lively part of classic video gaming. Namco's blessing and curse is that it successfully predicted (or perhaps determined?) the future path of video gaming. This collection is hurt by both that and the stinginess reflected in the short game list.
To address the first: Pole Position is included on release after release of NamcoMuseum. It's a racing game, very modern by classic standards, that fails to be fun. Why? It was a good game -- so influential that almost any sixteen-bit-and-earlier racing game was its child (this includes Sega's great Virtua Racing series). Unfortunately, the games that follow in its footsteps outdo it by miles. Therefore, nostalgia is the only real reason to play it.
The other games make out better: Ms. Pac-Man is a blast, even though the whole franchise is overrated and overexposed; Dig-Dug is the gem of this collection, providing plenty of bizarro rock-dropping, air-pumping, dig-dugging action among the pookas and fygar; and Galaga and its (surprisingly fun) forbear Galaxian round out the shooter niche nicely, though, again, they inspired so many copycats (after copying Space Invaders first) that they feel rather diluted.
Why only three stars? Well, to get to the second point, there's only five games! Even Konami, whose classic arcade games are criminally underrated and who can't have expected decent sales, managed to get six games on their GBA cart. I refuse to believe that any of these ports, no matter how accurate, took up very much space. Xevious, Mappy, Toy Pop, Bosconian, even RallyX (all but the first evolutionary dead-ends)... at least a couple of these could and should have been shoehorned onto the cartridge somehow. There's also no museum at all (not even release dates), but that's expected on the GBA.
All in all, the ports are faithful (though turning corners in Ms. Pac-Man and Dig-Dug is slower than I remember), the games are fun, and, most importantly, it's cheap. If you want a more fulfilling classic experience, though, look to Konami Arcade Advanced and Activision Anthology.
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