Namco and Nintendo: Let's Rekindle a Match Made in Heaven!

My brother Matt over at Syntactic Sugar was having a discussion with me earlier today, and the subject of games for the Wii U came up. Well, since I own the console, and use it quite often, this is one of my favorite subjects, because I like to see what kind of games can utilize its hardware to its fullest potential. After much discussion, I settled on five that I would love to see at some point, either in disc form, or downloadable content from the Nintendo e-Shop:

5) Pac Pix -- This is one that my brother initially suggested, and given that Nintendo has bee porting Nintendo DS games to the Wii U's virtual Console, I see it as a distinct possibility. While it wouldn't be my first choice of game, I could see myself playing it on the condition of Namco fixing the stupid rule that the player absolutely has to draw Pac-Man a certain way or lose a life.

Screenshot of Pac Pix for Nintendo DS

4) Pac Man Championship Edition -- Initially, my first experience playing this game was on an arcade machine at either Dave & Buster's or Scene 75--probably the latter, since I have been there more recently. My first impression was excitement with a hint of giddiness, as well as disappointment when I initially couldn't play it at home. After I obtained the Roku 2 XS, however, this disappointment changed to excitement and happiness when I realized that the game was available in the Roku Channel Store. Regardless, however, it would be nice to play the game without having the television running.

Screenshot of Pac Man Championship Edition - Xbox 360 Version

3) Pac And Roll -- This is another Nintendo DS game that would work perfectly well if it was ported to the Nintendo DS, and compared with Pac Pix, it doesn't have any stupid or arbitrary rules for how to set up Pac Man in a certain way. Again, since Nintendo has started porting the Nintendo DS library to the Wii U, I see more likeliness of this game happening than not. I'm not crossing my fingers, or holding my breath, but it's nice to show a little optimism sometimes, providing it doesn't come back to haunt later. From the screenshot, the closest way to describe it is "Super Monkey Ball with Pac Man."

Screenshot of Pac and Roll. Looks like Super Monkey Ball, right?!

2) Katamari Damacy -- As much as I hate to disrupt the theme of Pac-Man, my second best choice for a Namco game being ported to the Wii U would be this. Between the Wii U having the dual-analog controls, as well as the convenience of off-television play, this game seems as though it would be a no-brainer for the console. Plus, to make things even more interesting, there could be an extra mode or controller setting that allowed the player to use the Wii U's gyroscopic motion controls along with or instead of the dual analogue joysticks. Perhaps I'm the only one whom feels this way, however, maybe if enough people read this, demand will start to churn.

Screenshot from the PlayStation 2 Game 'Katamari Damacy'

1) Pac Man Vs. -- With other games for the Wii U supporting five players at once, such as Super Mario Brothers/Luigi U, I feel that the fact that this game DOESN'T exist for the Wii U is a crime against humanity. With both the GameCube and Nintendo DS versions, only three players could play ghosts while one person played a round of Pac-Man. My theory is that a person can use the Wii U Game Pad as a fifth controller, in the same respect that New Super Mario/Luigi U does, however, instead of just providing extra platforms in the respect that 'New Super' does, instead, the fifth player plays a round of the game Pac-Man on the Game Pad screen while the other four players -- yes, four (the GameCube version had three) play as the otherwise non-playable ghosts 'Blinky', 'Pinky', 'Inky', and 'Clyde' -- or 'Sue' if you're playing Ms. Pac-Man.

And that's another thing. Since we already had Pac Man Vs. on both home console and portable, I feel that this new port of Pac Man Vs. should be 'Ms. Pac-Man' themed. Not only would it be a nice change of pace, but it would also round up fans who preferred the sequel anyway. And with that, I leave you with this final screenshot of Pac Man Vs. for the Nintendo GameCube. It was the first result to pop up on Google Images:

Pac Man Vs. for Nintendo GameCube. This screenshot shows the TV and GBA screens.