The Nintendo 64 thread!

[Acid King]

Doom 64 is pretty great. Definitely deserves to be played in the dark with the sound effects and music cranked. The platformers (Banjo, Rayman, Rocket) were enjoyable at the time , but I haven't touched them in many years. NFL Blitz 2001/Special Version are both awesome multiplayer games (though 2001 is better on the Dreamcast). WCW/NWO Revenge and Wrestlemania 2000 are still my two favorite wrestling games.

[Ed Oscuro]

Speaking of racers - the Extreme G racers are great fun, don't deprive yourself by overlooking the second especially. The original came as a great shock, having read for years how good it was while having played the second one first. There is a great difference in quality between the two, but the first one still does what it sets out to competently enough. I think this series was still slogging along until just this gen; it's been on all the last-gen consoles (excluding perhaps the Dreamcast).

This game was awesome, I got EVERYTHING in it:

The first stage lets you know something special is gonna happen. That little truck, lol.

Aside from their FPSes, Rare's games haven't gotten much attention here, but they were system-sellers back in the day - Banjo Kazooie, the sequel Tooie, some other stuff, Donkey Kong 64.

Mario Party games are (so I'm told, I've never played one) controller wreckers (and that is a problem with the system) and there's three to choose from...it's another series that started out on the N64.

WWF No Mercy was easily the best wrestling game ever, then came VPW 2.

The N64 was an odd console that seemed to encompass multiple generations within itself. The earlier kayfabe fightin' games looked terrible, but then out comes this later one which looks super NEXTGEN and shiny.

Speaking of Rare and shiny things - Diddy Kong Racing and Conker's BFD also had a reputation for being system upgrades. Conker's BFD is now available on the Xbox, though, so that's probably the better choice for playing it.

[KAI]

Mario Party games are controller wreckers

Also:

True story.

WWF No Mercy was easily the best wrestling game ever, then came VPW 2.

The WCW vs NWO series had better mechanics and music.

[BIL]

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/7250/29nzd5k.png

XMFD

[CIT]

The N64 comes in somewhere between the 3DO and the Amiga CD32 in my ranking of console usefulness.

[Ed Oscuro]

Mario Party games are controller wreckers

Also:
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/7250/29nzd5k.png
True story.

There are Luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing videos for every game in the series.

WWF No Mercy was easily the best wrestling game ever, then came VPW 2.

The WCW vs NWO series had better mechanics and music.

also: playing wrasslin' games for the music

[Obiwanshinobi]

Off-topic, but... there they go again.
Where did the idea come from that S&P2 is too long to practice it in brief sessions? Listening to the bitching, you'd think everybody and their dog have already 1cc-ed each and every STAGE on Hard, and yet still find full 1cc on Normal to be out of reach.
Seems like another game more talked about than played.

[ED-057]

Super Robot Taisen 64

[Mortificator]

The WCW vs NWO series had better mechanics and music.

As soon as I read your post, the entrance music from WCW/nWo Revenge started playing in my brain.

I've heard nothing but good about Jet Force Gemini

UNTIL NOW. The first part of the game's alright, but then Rare unleashes their item collecting fetish and makes the player go back through every level and find every Ewok before allowing him to continue. I lost interest at that point when I played the game on cart. Looking at online playthroughs later, I see that the fetch questing makes up the largest portion of the game, and that the final confrontation you're rewarded with is pretty weak anyway.

[ancestral-knowledge]

Conkers bad fur day
Paper Mario
maybe F-Zero X and MK Triology

that's all.... rest sucks... so does n64

[Skykid]

Off-topic, but... there they go again.
Where did the idea come from that S&P2 is too long to practice it in brief sessions? Listening to the bitching, you'd think everybody and their dog have already 1cc-ed each and every STAGE on Hard, and yet still find full 1cc on Normal to be out of reach.
Seems like another game more talked about than played.

Seriously, I forgot what a bunch of fucking assholes you lot are to talk to sometimes. And I thought it was just me.

Let's not have a conversation. Go suck on a hydrogen cylinder and light a match or something, you might explode at 60fps.

[Ed Oscuro]

You will explode from the power of SIXTY-FOUUUUUUUR!

Off-topic, but... there they go again.

yep

[Koa Zo]

Here are some N64 games which I enjoy:

Asteroids Hyper 64
Bangaioh
Bass Rush ~ECOGEAR PowerWorm Championship~
BattleTanx: Global Assault
Beetle Adventure Racing
Blast Corps
Body Harvest
Bomberman 64 (jpn)
Bomberman Hero
Dezaemon 3D Shooting Game Editor
Diddy Kong Racing
Donald Duck Goin' Quackers
Doom 64
Doraemon 3: Nobita no Machi SOS!
Excitebike 64
F-Zero X
Geomon's Great Adventure
Hot Wheels Turbo Racing
Hybrid Heaven
Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards
Lego Racers
Mario Kart 64
Mario Tennis
Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits
Mischief Makers
Ms. Pac-Man (Maze Madness)
Paper Mario
Puyo Puyo Sun 64
Puzzle Bobble 64
Rocket Robot on Wheels
RR64 Ridge Racer 64
Scooby Doo Classic Creep Capers
Sin & Punishment
Snowboard Kids
Snowboard Kids 2
Space Invaders
Starcraft 64
Star Soldier Vanishing Earth
Super Mario 64 (rumble version)
Yoshi's Story
Virtua Pro-Wrestling 2
Wave Race 64 (rumble version)
Wild Choppers

[steveovig]

It's amazing to think that the N64 should've totally obliterated every other console, in terms of third-party support. Had it not been for the fact that Nintendo went with cartridges instead of CDs, they probably would've gotten games like FF7 and the whole gaming landscape could be different now. You figure the N64 was much more powerful than the PSX and it had a good 3-4 year jump on the PS2.

[Obiwanshinobi]

You figure the N64 was much more powerful than the PSX and it had a good 3-4 year jump on the PS2.

Omega Boost says hallo. "Much more powerful", huh? Heard something along those lines about Dreamcast vs PS2 too.
No RGB output alone was reason enough for N64 to fail and I'm not sure if 3D acceleration wasn't effectively deceleration back in 1996. Granted, that very year accelerators became desirable PC gaming equipment (apparently made quite a difference in Tomb Raider), but PC gaming was pretty much another world at the time.

[Ed Oscuro]

No RGB output alone was reason enough for N64 to fail and I'm not sure if 3D acceleration wasn't effectively deceleration back in 1996. Granted, that very year accelerators became desirable PC gaming equipment (apparently made quite a difference in Tomb Raider), but PC gaming was pretty much another world at the time.

lol at this whole thing

RGB is a niche format that is useless to most people. The Dreamcast had VGA which was (and still is) a common standard and more useful for many people. Maybe you meant "the lack of component output," which again is a silly thing to criticize because I don't think that was commonly available on consumer televisions until DVD players started to appear.

Yes, the S3 ViRGE was nicknamed the "3D decelerator," I have a couple of them on machines here (the tower PC actually plays Half-Life with only 1MB of video memory so that's not terribly shabby, although it didn't win any awards for frame rate).

I don't know what mentioning Omega Boost is meant to prove - the N64's capable of as many polygons at a quick pace; it just has an atrocious controller and far smaller textures (which suit some games just fine, and the N64 has much better texture mapping as well). Some level of the N64's performance snags are the result of Nintendo's foolish policy on the SGI microcode. By the time the GameCube rolled out, it looks like Nintendo had learned from all these problems, although some of the classic problems were replaced with some newer ones (mostly marketing).

Anyway I would like to complain about something - because I was feeling too lazy to hook up the N64 and move some stuff out from in front of the television, so I could plug in the Donkey Kong 64 cartridge waiting patiently on my desk, I decided to look up the state of N64 emulation.

Like (most) PlayStation and PS2 emulators, the easiest N64 emulator to use has a plugin structure. That would be Project64.

Unfortunately Project64 is something of a clusterfuck for a bunch of reasons that should be obvious if you ever look at this post from one of the most respected members of the original development team. Lots of people had a field day, because of the official irresponsibility about getting the release out there and replacing the "stable" old version with the actually more stable and compatible newer versions, uploading hacked and misnumbered versions of the emulator. I remember spending quite a bit of time looking for a somewhat legitimate release and my few minutes just now reminded me of that. Strangely the newest thing I've come across has an install package only...no thank you, I don't trust those.

So basically, at the moment you are stuck with bad choices: You could try your luck with the open emulator or the aptly named MESS, or you could go out there and encourage the bad behavior of the Project64 team by paying into the extortion racket they have going on there while dipshits from other emulator projects look on approvingly at this legendary bait-and-switch - years after they got all the free plugin support from unpaid community members, and soaked up all the limelight, they decided to start asking money. Strangely enough the years of forced donations have seen essentially no progress in the emulator whatsoever; the latest version seems to be from 2010 and as Jabo mentions most of the fixes could be rolled into the old version 1.6. Very disappointing all around.

[KAI]

N64, worst console streaming audio.

[Ed Oscuro]

N64, worst console streaming audio.

GB Player on the GameCube for GBA games...some SNES games have awful streaming audio too.

N64's sound architecture (more MIDI-like) has been criticized compared to the SNES but it seems much easier to use. Just program one of the system's CPUs and off you go with your choice of media.

[EmperorIng]

N64, worst console streaming audio.

Regardless of the quality of the compositions, I will agree in saying that a serious knock against the N64 is its audio quality - it almost always sounded bad, even in games with good music. I mean, love the Majora's Mask and Mischief Makers soundtracks, among countless others, but the instrument samples used were always really low-quality. I suppose that gives the system a charm all its own, but I think playing the Saturn so much has really spoiled me in terms of audio.

GB Player on the GameCube for GBA games...some SNES games have awful streaming audio too.

N64's sound architecture (more MIDI-like) has been criticized compared to the SNES but it seems much easier to use. Just program one of the system's CPUs and off you go with your choice of media.

The SNES has a lot of reverb on its samples to make them sound not-muffled (and trust me they need it), but I don't feel they are as compressed as many instruments on n64 games.

UNTIL NOW. The first part of the game's alright, but then Rare unleashes their item collecting fetish and makes the player go back through every level and find every Ewok before allowing him to continue. I lost interest at that point when I played the game on cart. Looking at online playthroughs later, I see that the fetch questing makes up the largest portion of the game, and that the final confrontation you're rewarded with is pretty weak anyway.

This is somewhat true - it's a shame because up to Mizar's palace, the game is really fantastic and varied. The Tribal Rescue is not the main gripe, because that's easy to see thanks to checkpoints throughout the entire game showing how many you saved.

The ship collection is the real nail in the dick, because you have no indication of where the ship parts are, and the massive levels make it easy to miss them. It kept my best friend and I from beating the game for over a year.

I WILL say though that the final battle with Mizar is really sweet, and an awesome final boss battle in and of itself. But it is hard to counter that against the tedium of visiting each and every level 14 times to find the ship pieces. And without a guide back in the day! How did we do it?

[Obiwanshinobi]

RGB is a niche format that is useless to most people.

Not in the PAL area, it is not. Saturn (first batch, 1995) came bundled with a SCART lead. RGB is THE reason why I have PSX and Saturn, whereas N64 is not in my collection (if I badly wanted to play N64 games, I'd rather use emulators).

I don't know what mentioning Omega Boost is meant to prove - the N64's capable of as many polygons at a quick pace; it just has an atrocious controller and far smaller textures (which suit some games just fine, and the N64 has much better texture mapping as well).

S&P may be a good game, but would you honestly say it looks (and sounds!) better than Omega Boost (with RGB colour indeed)? You should see Radiant Silvergun, Sanvein and Silent Bomber with RGB colour too. The less said about pixel-artsy games, the better, as N64 barely had those.

[NAVVARR]

I had a load of great memories playing multiplayer 'Diddy Kong Racing' against my kids- 4 player's racing around a map shooting lumps out of each other in a quarter of a TV- best fun ever.

[Mortificator]

I liked how Diddy was less rubber-bandy than Mario Kart. Items were still important, but your lead wouldn't evaporate due to a single blue shell. And while multiplayer's the core of a kart racing game, I agree with neorichieb that it was nice how there was a world with bosses for single-player, not just cups and time trials. Rare made racing an evil alien pig as dramatic as possible.

[Ed Oscuro]

I should preface my comments by saying that a lot of this will vary depending on whether you care more about potential vs. implementation. The PlayStation achieved more of its potential throughout its run than the N64, without a question, and in most cases that is what ultimately matters if not achieving its potential led to compromised games. However, some of the blanket statements against the N64 seem wrong to me, because there are cases where those are not at all true.

Just to get into it a little - audio quality. The SNES has some fantastic soundtracks, and then it has some SNES-ified MIDIs. It also has (if memory serves) the occasional streaming audio (one of the Tales intros?) which isn't a high enough bitrate to pass (although this is rare). The generic case for SNES games is that the sound is mediocre, because of GIGO. Of course it has amazing stuff when done right.

The N64 doesn't have some of the neat effects and such that the SNES sound does, and it sounds a lot like then-contemporary MIDI in many games. As far as I can tell, both systems are similar in that their audio runs on actual CPUs with some sound function - meaning that the care paid towards programming these had a good deal to do with whether those systems reached their potentials. The N64 has a lot of flexibility in what can be run on it - not only can you stream PCM data, you can do something MIDI-like, you can play MP3s (and Ogg Vorbis or whatever if programmed, I'm sure), and also run a tracker for classic PC-style music. I think most games use a mix of MIDI-like and tracked music.

I'm not sure which system has the best audio in general. Certainly the N64 has some positional audio capabilities you don't get on the SNES (I don't think the "lol Dolby" games count for that, not without a new coprocessor on cartridge) but in terms of general audio potential the SNES is superior - but again this strikes me as a case of generalities versus specifics.

Now for a bunch of generalities...

RGB is a niche format that is useless to most people.

Not in the PAL area, it is not. Saturn (first batch, 1995) came bundled with a SCART lead. RGB is THE reason why I have PSX and Saturn, whereas N64 is not in my collection (if I badly wanted to play N64 games, I'd rather use emulators).

Sorry, I should've said that PAL territories are niche. You know it's true. Whether right or wrong doesn't matter - I don't see how you could have gotten better experiences with the hardware and lack of standards in the day, and the lion's share of software and hardware being developed in NTSC territories. Another instance of the marginal role of PAL territories could also be found in the sales data for the SNES, no doubt a data point for Nintendo and Sony planning their upcoming 3D era consoles: "49.10 million Super NES units were sold worldwide, with 23.35 million of those units sold in the Americas and 17.17 million in Japan."

Of course I don't blame PAL (or SECAM) territories for having their own video setups at the time (we can blame it on DeGaulle, just for the hell of it!), but when you consider the expense of creating a wide range of accessories including cables, you can see why a company without plans to cover all of the audiovisual spectrum (Sony's perennial dream) might neglect such an option. Most TV manufacturers selling units in the US in the period couldn't even be bothered to put stereo input jacks, let alone S-Video, and anything fancier than that is almost unheard of outside production equipment. Nintendo hasn't even made component cables for the GameCube very easy to come by.

I don't know what mentioning Omega Boost is meant to prove - the N64's capable of as many polygons at a quick pace; it just has an atrocious controller and far smaller textures (which suit some games just fine, and the N64 has much better texture mapping as well).

It does strike me as having things backwards to say that you get the system because of its video output format, rather than for the games. I would buy a pig's ear if it let me play the best game ever and I wouldn't regret it.

S&P may be a good game, but would you honestly say it looks (and sounds!) better than Omega Boost (with RGB colour indeed)? You should see Radiant Silvergun, Sanvein and Silent Bomber with RGB colour too. The less said about pixel-artsy games, the better, as N64 barely had those.

I'm not talking about S&P; I don't have any particular axe to grind there. I've only played it via emulation (though I could change that easily enough).

Omega Boost is an odd choice of a game for standard comparison. Omega Boost is mainly set in open space with a short draw distance whenever there is a surface below or around you, and many more polygons are appropriated for ship details than is seen in many other games on the system. The PSX had a bit of a head start and yes, Nintendo's policies and lack of effort pushing the microcode forward (as well as a few bad design decisions) definitely didn't help things. But the console is capable of more and better than what is seen. If you want to find games, although in totally different genres thus making direct comparisons impossible, which more than challenge what we saw on the PSX, look to Factor 5 games. I generally like PlayStation racing games (whatever they be) more than the usual N64 ones, but again that system was capable of much more than we typically saw as Rogue Squadron showed (and I haven't even seen Battle of Naboo). Personally, Mario Kart 64 was a perfectly good fit for the platform and I have no qualms about it. Considering the awful, awful video most people had to put up with at the time (composite video was standard - Europe doesn't count, again), the less detailed textures of the N64 show up quite nicely on period televisions connected in such a way. That's not to say that PlayStation games were unplayable of course.

Like I said, the N64's small texture size limits its flexibility and aesthetic appeal, but so does the PlayStation's affine texturing. The effects of video in either console are either lovable or instantly dated - I somewhat prefer the look of PlayStation games with that trippy texturing but thankfully I don't have to choose sides. Those console wars are over.

I've played Silent Bomber - good game but needed better levels near the end of the campaign to really make use of its promise - and the voice actors are atrocious.

[Austin]

Some personal favorites that haven't been mentioned yet: Killer Instinct Gold, and Wipeout 64.

[louisg]

I agree with Ed. I could also add that there are a handful of N64 games which do look excellent that you might want to check out. For example, the Rush 2049 port which looks extremely close to the DC one (it's mostly just lower res and half the framerate). The DC one is a bit underperforming, but the fact that the N64 one is competitive with it is pretty impressive. I'd also suggest checking out Ridge Racer 64, which stacks up nicely in terms of graphics to the later PS1 versions. If you want something to compare Omega Boost to, I'd say check out StarFox 64, a really vivid looking game that's only let down a little by its frame tearing. Or even Perfect Dark-- I think that's a demonstration of a game the PS1 would have a bit of trouble doing in terms of visual complexity.

I do agree that, in general, N64 audio was a let-down. And, in general, the PS1 is a more balanced design. But the N64 brought a lot of stuff to the home, ahead of PC graphics accelerators. It was a big jump in image quality, even if some design decisions were baffling.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I liked the idea of most graphics being polygonal and real-time (think Vectrex 3D); also, I don't wish N64 had more voice acting, BUT if we're talking actually playing the games nowadays, the issues pile up. So the video signal thing could be worked around with a mod. So the machine is durable... except for the controllers (one hell of an issue if you're interested in analogue controls). Then there's the matter of performance. Many N64 games can make quite a few people physically sick (never say never).

As for Omega Boost, I haven't heard stereo sound this "positional" in any other that gen console game. Again and again, decent earphones are the most affordable way to find out. At the time, not many COMPUTER games could do "3D sound" better (Thief II and Kingpin... if you had a sound card with EAX).
Well, typically Sony devs are the best at programming Sony consoles.

[Ganelon]

I'd also suggest checking out Ridge Racer 64, which stacks up nicely in terms of graphics to the later PS1 versions.

Ridge Racer 64 compares favorably in content and in number of opponent cars on-screen at a time (the latter "feature" can often be more aggravating than the single car overtaking in the PS versions). However, the graphics don't stand up at all to R4, the last PS Ridge Racer and a game that was even released before RR64. If you're looking for a racer with similar mechanics (although much less lenient controls) and comparable visuals on N64, Midway's World Driver Championship would be it.

Omega Boost's key graphical forte is the final boss, which I don't think is as well done in any N64 game. Then again, I don't recall seeing water in any PS game as good looking as in Wave Race 64. I think it's a bit silly to put so much emphasis on 3D visuals though. Whatever they are, current models look much better. However, for 2D, that's not always the case. I think it'll be hard to get much acceptance of the N64 on this forum because so few arcade staple genres are well-represented on the platform.

I have good memories of the system, playing Super Smash Bros., having fun in 4P local FPS deathmatches (back when I actually looked forward to FPS releases such as Turok 2), being amazed at how colorful Super Mario 64 was, and awaiting the Project Reality game of the future. But in hindsight, there aren't many games that really connect to me. Unlike diehard Nintendo fans, I didn't find the appeal in the widely acclaimed Zelda duo or in Starfox 64 or in Diddy Kong Racing or in the Banjo games.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Panzer Dragoon Zwei had the best looking first-gen 3D water on a console if you ask me (needless to say, RGB helped great deal). I think it was that "Mode 7+" thing Saturn was good at.
My, what a "flight sim light" game could have Saturn pulled off, but alas...
I need to play some Pilotwings (SNES and N64 emulated). Low framerate, here I come.

[BryanM]

I didn't find the appeal in the widely acclaimed Zelda duo

It is a bit slow to get going, but Ocarina of Time is the very best horseback archery ghost-shooting game on the Nintendo 64.

[Skykid]

I didn't find the appeal in the widely acclaimed Zelda duo.

The inhumanity.