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Lament 64
It’s 1994 and I’m standing outside the local electronics store watching an N64 demo. The rain is coming down in sheets and my feet are cold and wet. I stand rooted to the spot. There’s a certain magic about watching a fully 3D Mario run and jump around a bright and colorful world. I have to have one. I need one – a cartridge-based system that flies in the face of the ROM-based Playstation.
It took much scrimping and saving to finally have the bucks to get my very own N64. And I’ve never loved a system more. (What follows is a rambling history/op-ed piece filled with dead-ends and the occasional spilt-infinitive. When emotion is this strong, it's hard to find the words.)
Flash forward to 2002, roughly eight years after that rainy afternoon and I’m playing NFL Madden 2002, probably the last N64 game I’ll ever review. The fact that support for the N64 was finally at an end started to sink in. No more new games from Nintendo or the 3rd party developers. Like leaving highschool or the hour preceding the change over to a New Year, it sent me into a spiral of nostalgia so strong I expected a black hole to be at the center of it. There was a flood of emotions and half-forgotten memories that needed to be sorted out.
It all started with Super Mario 64. Shigeru Miyamoto’s plumber was back and he had all-new 3D clothes. As a game, Mario 64 raised the bar for other developers and touched the gaming industry in ways that would not be fully realized until years later. (Roberta Williams “retired” from Sierra On-Line and gaming in general after working on King’s Quest VIII, a fully 3D game, which received mixed reviews from fans and critics, instead of the usual acclaim, reserved for King’s Quest games. She was often quoted extolling the virtues of Miyamoto’s game. The fallout saw Sierra shift its “focus” and adventure games are considered by many to be dead.)
In the early going, the N64 was lauded for its graphics and sound but criticized for its weak 3rd party support. Developers considered it too hard to develop for but that didn’t stop the folks at Rareware, (Rare) responsible for the SNES classic Donkey Kong Country.
Rare started with the underrated Blast Corps, which exampled how well explosions could look on the N64. Many won’t even remember the title – it was just overshadowed by other little titles from Rare: Goldeneye, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong 64, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
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Goldeneye is of special mention for two reasons. 1) It was a fantastic game and really captured that Bond-ian feel. 2) It was a movie-based game that didn't suck – actually managed to be excellent. Conker’s Bad Fur Day, while not breaking any sales records was the first “M”-rated game for the N64 and a solid attempt at making a game for older players that were raised on platform jumpers. It was packed with movie |
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parodies, sexual innuendo, and foul language. Perfect Dark is considered by some to be the best game ever – on any platform. All the lessons Rare learned from Goldeneye were implemented in Perfect Dark and even PC gamers sat up and noticed. (And all N64 owners ran out to buy the RAM expansion.)
Of course, Nintendo had some hits on the N64 as well, like Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64, Paper Mario, Mario 64, and Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Collectively, they took months off my life.
Third party support was hard to come by even in the system's prime. Heavyweights like Electronic Arts and Capcom released only a few games. There just didn’t seem to be the support from developers like Sony’s Playstation got. Everyone and their dog was churning our PSOne games – some good, but most electronic fodder. I haven’t done an analysis of good games per 10 titles, but I’m sure the N64 brought out more quality titles than the PSOne (on a relative basis).
Most theories behind the weak 3rd party support revolve around the cartridge media of the N64; mainly the cartridges were more expensive to produce than CD-ROMs. Stamping out ROMs is a simple matter but Nintendo went the cartridge route because it kept load times down to almost nothing and they're paranoid of piracy. Unfortunately, this brought the retail price well above games for the PSOne. There was a stigma attached to Nintendo as well – Nintendo as a “kiddie” system with lots of cute games. The Pokemon onslaught didn’t help Nintendo’s image among older gamers, but it sure did clean up with the younger crowd! The N64 also suffered from a near total lack of sports titles – commonly a big draw among the 18 years and older gamers. Another downside that critics later cited were the “muddy” graphics especially when the Playstation2 appeared on the market.
The first game I ever played on the N64 was Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. Just like everyone else, I too loved the first level on Hoth and suffered with the jump/glide of Dash Randar all the way through. But it was enough to convince me to buy the system – like watching Mario 64 wasn’t enough! But Shadows of the Empire is just as alive now as it was then.
To say a system is “dead” is inaccurate. My Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis are still alive and kicking. Granted, I don’t play with them as much as I used to, but they still work – I pop in Sonic or Mario 2 and I can twiddle away a couple of hours. To pronounce a system dead insinuates that the circuit boards are burned and inoperative – or at least buried in the back yard, marked by a simple headstone:
HERE LIES NEO*GEO MAY IT FIND ETERNAL PEACE
The N64 is alive and kicking and will continue to run Spiderman 64, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, 1080 Snowboarding, NFL Madden 2002, Paper Mario, Jet-Force Gemini and Resident Evil 2 twenty or thirty years before giving up the ghost. (With proper care and feeding, of course) which contrasts with the PSOne that has mechanical parts that make it more susceptible to breakage and a laser that would probably blind you if you attempted to perform laser eye surgery using it. The N64 may be out of the headlines, it may not have the processing power of the next generation of consoles (XBox, PS2, Gamecube), but it sure as hell isn’t dead. Those of you that own 3DOs, Jaguars, Vetrexes, Master Systems, Intellivisions, Colecovisions, TurboGraphic 16s, and Ataris know this already. (And Dreamcast owners will be learning shortly.)
A game system never dies – it just slowly fades away and when you least expect it, it appears at a garage sale. The N64 heralded a new age of gaming (The 3D Age) and it has some damn fine games. It may be fading – no new games on the horizon – but it remains my favorite platform of all time.
- Omni
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TO NAME BUT A FEW 1080 Snowboarding AeroGauge Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage All-Star Baseball 2000, 2001 Arcade Greatest Hits: Midway Collection Armorines Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 1, 2 Asteroids Hyper 64 Banjo-Kazooie Banjo-Tooie Bass Hunter BassMasters 2000 BattleTanx BattleTanx Global Assault Battlezone 2: Rise Of The Black Dogs Blast Corps Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! Bottom Of The 9th Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling Buck Bumble A Bug's Life Bust-A-Move '99 California Speed Carmageddon Chameleon Twist 2 Command & Conquer 3D Conker's Bad Fur Day Cruis'n USA Cruis'n World Cyber Tiger Woods Golf Destruction Derby 64 Diddy Kong Racing Donald Duck: Quack Attack Donkey Kong 64 Dr. Mario 64 Dual Heroes Duke Nukem: Zero Hour Earthworm Jim 3D Elmo's Letter Adventure Elmo's Number Journey Excitebike 64 Extreme-G Extreme-G 2 F-1 Pole Position 64 F-1 World Grand Prix F-Zero X FIFA 99 Fighter's Destiny Fighter's Destiny II Forsaken Fox College Hoops '99 Gauntlet Legends Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko Gex 64: Enter The Gecko The Glove Glover Goemon's Great Adventure GoldenEye 007 Golden Nugget 64 GT Racing 64: Championship Edition Harvest Moon Hercules: The Legendary Journey Hey You, Pikachu! Hot Wheels Turbo Racing Hybrid Heaven Jeremy McGrath Supercross 2000 Jet Force Gemini Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards Knockout Kings Lamborghini 64 The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time LEGO Racers Lode Runner 64 Madden NFL 2000, 2001, 2002 Mario Kart 64 Mario Party 1, 2, 3 Mario Tennis Mega Man 64 Mia Hamm Soccer 64 Micro Machines 64 Turbo Mission: Impossible Monster Truck Madness Mortal Kombat 4 Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero Mortal Kombat: Special Forces Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness Multi Racing Championship Nagano Olympic Hockey '98 Namco's Museum 64 NASCAR 2000 NBA Courtside NBA Courtside 2 NBA In The Zone '99, 2000 NBA Jam '99, 2000 NBA Live '99, 2000 NBA Showtime The New Tetris NFL Blitz NFL Blitz 2000, 2001 NFL Quarterback Club '99, 2000 NHL Breakaway '98 Nightmare Creatures Nuclear Strike Ogre Battle 64 Paperboy 64 Paper Mario Perfect Dark PGA European Tour Pokemon Puzzle League Pokemon Snap Pokemon Stadium Pokemon Stadium 2 Polaris SnoCross 2001 Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-Traction Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue Quake Quake II Rainbow Six Rampage: World Tour Rampage 2: Universal Tour Rayman 2 Ready To Rumble Boxing Resident Evil 2 Re-Volt Road Rash 64 Robotron 64 Rocket: Robot On Wheels Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing S.C.A.R.S. Scooby-Doo: Classic Creep Capers Shadowgate 64: Trials Of The Four Towers Shadow Man South Park South Park: Chef's Luv Shack South Park Rally Space Invaders Spider-Man Starshot: Space Circus Fever Star Soldier Vanishing Earth Star Wars Episode 1: Battle For Naboo Star Wars: Episode I Racer Star Wars: Rogue Squadron Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire Super Bowling 64 Supercross Series 2000 Super Mario 64 Super Smash Bros. Superman Tarzan Tom & Jerry: Fists Of Furry Tonic Trouble Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 Top Gear Rally Top Gear Rally 2 Toy Story 2 Triple Play 2000 Turok: Rage Wars Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil V-Rally Edition '99 Vigilante 8 Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense Virtual Pool 64 WCW Backstage Assault WCW Mayhem WCW/NWO Revenge WWF Attitude WWF: No Mercy WWF: War Zone WWF Wrestlemania 2000 Wetrix WinBack: Covert Operations Winnie The Pooh: Tigger's Honey Hunt Wipeout 64 The World Is Not Enough World Rally Challenge 2000 Worms Armageddon Xena: Warrior Princess
In total there were 288 games released for the system.
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