Namco History Vol. 3 (ナムコヒストリーVol.3 Namuko Hisutorī Vol. 3) is a compilation of six Namco arcade titles, released as a Windows CD-ROM by Namco in 1998. It is the third installment in the Namco History series, and features games from the Pac-Man and Dig Dug franchises.
Overview[]
Upon installing Namco History Vol. 3, each included game is added as an individual program file on the user's computer; allowing the games to be played without the CD-ROM being inserted. All of the games are emulated ports of Namco's arcade titles; making it among the first Namco compilations to use proper emulation (alongside the prior Namco History volumes). The ports themselves are very accurate to the arcade originals in performance, though all of the games have their audio pitched an octave lower.
Various forms of additional content are included on the disc, such as installable wallpapers, screensavers, and mouse cursors. Additionally, a physical "Papercraft Book" is included with the game, featuring various cut-out materials.
Games[]
The games included in Namco History Vol. 3 are:
- Pac-Man (1980)
- Ms. Pac-Man (1982)
- Super Pac-Man (1982)
- Pac & Pal (1983)
- Dig Dug (1982)
- Dig Dug II (1985)
Each game runs in windowed mode by default. Running the games in full screen adds their original arcade instruction cards as borders surrounding the screen (though Ms. Pac-Man uses a customized set of instruction cards).[2]
Extra content[]
Opening the main "Namco" executable on the disc leads to a program featuring additional content. This program opens with an animated cutscene of Pac-Man uncovering a treasure chest in a forest; leading to a menu containing the following options:
- Wallpaper (壁紙) - features eight desktop wallpapers in .bmp image format.
- Screensaver (スクリーンセーバー) - features screensavers of the demo screens of the included games.
- Character Icon (キャラクタ アイコン) - features desktop icons of various in-game sprites from the included games.
- Character Cursor (キャラクタ カーソル) - features mouse cursors of various in-game sprites from the included games.
- Illustration Data (イラストデータ) - features eight additional .bmp images, including six coloring pages and two pre-colored images. Features a hotlink to open the images in MS Paint for editing/coloring.
- NG GALLERY - features select pages from the original 14 quarterly issues of "NG - Namco Community Magazine".
Papercraft Book[]
Namco History Vol. 3 comes bundled with a physical "Papercraft Book" (紙工作本); this booklet features cut-outs and foldable papercrafts based on print materials for the original arcade games. Its contents include:
- Mini POP (ミニPOP) - miniaturized versions of the "POP Cards" (paper displays used in Japanese arcades) for Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Pac & Pal, and Dig Dug.
- Flyer Postcard (チラシポストカード) - presumably postcards featuring artwork of the promotional flyers for Super Pac-Man, Pac & Pal, Dig Dug, and Dig Dug II.
- Dig Dug Kamizumo (DIGDUG 紙相撲) - presumably an adaption of the Kamizumo papercraft game.
- NG Special Appendix (NG特別付録) - various papercrafts that were originally featured in "NG - Namco Community Magazine".
Trivia[]
- Each game included in the compilation retains its original copyright byline. The sole exception to this is Ms. Pac-Man; which is altered to credit Namco Ltd., and is dated 1998.
- Several of the included wallpapers and illustrations are sourced from otherwise-uncommon assets. Notably, this includes a page from the Pac-Man 1990 calendar, the front cover of the Namco 1991 calendar, and the side artwork of the Japanese Dig Dug arcade machine; alongside assets from the 1980s "Pac-Man Character Manual" (specifically the later artwork variants with Pac-Man's nose shortened).
- Namco's press release for the compilation promotes it as being the first Japanese home release of Super Pac-Man.[1] While this is technically correct, variants of the game were published in 1983 as Power Pac and Mr. Packn, released for the Sord M5 and Casio PV-2000, respectively.
- Ironically, the press release does not note the collection as being the first home release of Pac & Pal.
- The prior Namco History volumes are similar in contents to Vol. 3 - including various arcade ports with bundled extras - though do not include any Pac-Man titles.
- Namco History Vol. 1 features games such as Xevious and Mappy; no physical items appear to be included. Pac-Man is featured on the front cover, but does not appear in-game.
- Namco History Vol. 2 features games such as The Tower of Druaga and Rally-X; it comes with one of two Tower of Druaga-themed mousepads, which were selected at random.
- Namco History Vol. 4 focuses on Namco's space-shooting games, such as Galaga and Galaxian; it comes with a set of collectible cards.
- The Namco History line would be followed by Namco Collection Vol. 1, which featured later-released arcade titles. This compilation reportedly failed to run on most Windows PCs of the time; resulting in many copies being returned and exchanged, and ultimately leading to Volume 2 being canceled.[3]
- While the Namco History series was not released outside of Japan, its game ports were repurposed for Microsoft Revenge of Arcade, a compilation designed for the U.S. market. The Ms. Pac-Man port from Vol. 3 is also featured in Microsoft Return of Arcade: Anniversary Edition.
- Loading the games under some virtual PCs (among similar set-ups) results in the audio having a strange pitchbend; this is most noticeable in Ms. Pac-Man.[2] This also occurs in the Microsoft Arcade releases.
- Some sources claim that a copyright byline related to Jr. Pac-Man appears on the game's packaging, despite the game not being included on the disc. It is unclear where this is located, however, and may be the result of a mistranslation.